Session: Community Based Participatory Research with Diverse Urban Older Adults in East Harlem (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Social work researchers seek to enhance understanding of social problems that are understudied and communities that are marginalized. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) explicitly values the knowledge and skills of understudied and marginalized communities, and involves partnership with all stakeholders in all aspects of inquiry. Thus, CBPR principles and methods, in both process and outcome, are consistent with the core values of social work, and represent ideal tools for social workers to employ for ethical and collaborative knowledge development. 

New York City’s East Harlem (EH), known as El Barrio, is one of the most diverse and underserved neighborhoods in NYC.  It is also home to Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work and Silberman Aging: A Hartford Center of Excellence in Diverse Aging. The mission of the Center is to promote the health and wellbeing of underserved and underrepresented older adults and their families through community-engaged education, research, and advocacy. 

In 2011 55% of EH residents identified as Latino, with half speaking Spanish at home.  Nearly 34% of residents identified as Black, and EH is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of Asian residents.  There has been a 66% increase in foreign-born seniors living in EH, while the native-born senior population decreased by 6% . Designated a Medically Underserved Area/Population, EH seriously lacks primary care, mental health and oral health providers. It has among the highest mortality and morbidity rates and the highest rate of avoidable hospitalizations in NYC, in part because of low rates of health insurance and lack of access to primary care. Foreign-born older adults in NYC are six times less likely to have health insurance than their native born counterparts, and 44% of foreign-born EH residents live below the poverty line.

 

In this symposium we present three examples of CBPR partnering with diverse older adults in EH.  The first  describes El Barrio SHARE, a community-centered collaborative process of identifying needs in EH and jointly developing, with multiple stakeholders including older adults, caregivers, community leaders, and services providers, a comprehensive approach to increasing knowledge of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) and facilitating access to diagnostic and interventive services for Latino older adults.  The second paper describes the findings of a multi-component needs assessment conducted in East and Central Harlem. Using a CBPR approach, the collaborative explored the perspectives and supportive care needs of chronically ill older adults living in East and Central Harlem in order to identify barriers and develop interventions to reach underserved elders. The third paper describes a pilot that used a CBPR framework, focus groups, and qualitative methods to explore and identify the dementia health literacy needs and preferred health communication methods of Spanish-speaking /low English proficiency Latino senior center participants in an urban poor community. The researchers explored the feasibility of collaboratively producing culturally informed and linguistically sensitive health education video about memory and aging in Spanish with the input of Latino seniors..  We examine strengths and challenges of a CBPR approach and implications for social work research, practice, training and policy.