Weis, Jennifer A.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption of social networks and negatively impacted social determinants of health (SDoH, e.g., economic stability, mental health, health care access) among African Americans. The FAITH! (Fostering African-American Improvement in Total Health!) Program, an academic-community partnership with African American churches, pivoted to pandemic-related impacts on health behaviors of African Americans. This exploratory, cross-sectional study examined associations between multilevel factors influencing difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle during the early pandemic phase, including mental/emotional health and COVID-19 hardships (e.g., job/food/housing insecurity, paying utilities). An online survey was distributed via FAITH!-affiliated churches and social media. Logistic regression (odds ratios [ORs], adjusted for age/gender) and associated 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) examined associations between difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle and multilevel factors. Greater than half of respondents reported difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle (N = 169, 54% [91/169]). Adjusted odds of having difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle were greater for those reporting mental/emotional health issues (high-stress OR 4.0; 95% CI [1.9,8.9], p < .001); occasional symptoms of depression (OR 3.7; 95% CI [01.9,7.7]; p < .001); anger (OR 2.5; 95% CI [1.2,5.4]; p = .044), and anxiety (OR 2.8; 95% CI [1.4,6.0]; p = .008)). COVID-19 hardships of job insecurity (OR 1.4.; 95% CI [0.7, 2,8]; p = .015), difficulty paying rent (OR 4.4; 95% CI [2.1,9.9]; p < .001) or difficulty paying for food/utilities (OR 5.4; 95% CI [2.6,11.7]; p < .001) were associated with difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our study revealed the negative impact of mental/emotional health and COVID-19 hardships on maintaining a healthy lifestyle among African Americans. This could inform SDoH-focused lifestyle interventions during future public health crises.

The FAITH! (Fostering African-American Improvement in Total Health) Cardiovascular Health and Wellness Program is more than a decade-long community-based participatory research initiative aimed at addressing cardiovascular health disparities among African-Americans in Minnesota. Founded in 2013, the program employs a culturally tailored, community-driven approach by partnering with African-American faith communities to promote cardiovascular health through education, digital health tools, and multilevel interventions targeting the social determinants of health. Grounded in community-based participatory research principles, FAITH! prioritizes equitable academic-community partnerships, co-learning, community capacity building, and shared ownership in all aspects of research and implementation. The program’s exemplary innovations include the NIH-funded FAITH! Trial, a randomized clinical trial, testing a mobile health intervention (the FAITH! App) co-created with the African-American community, and the Techquity by FAITH! study. Techquity by FAITH! evaluates the effectiveness of a culturally relevant, community-informed mHealth intervention supported by a Digital Health Advocate network to improve overall cardiovascular health and digital health literacy. During its evolution, FAITH! has addressed emergent public health crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, by adapting programming to provide emergency preparedness resources, health education, and vaccine outreach. Key outcomes include sustainable church-based health ministries, increased research participation, and successful translation of research into practice. The program has also contributed to research workforce development by mentoring and training diverse early-career scholars and community leaders in community-based participatory research and cardiovascular health equity research. Lessons learned highlight the transformative impact of community-based participatory research in building trust, facilitating culturally relevant dissemination, and sustaining health equity initiatives. The FAITH! model demonstrates a scalable, community-led strategy for advancing cardiovascular health in underserved populations and provides a blueprint for future initiatives aiming to reduce racial health disparities.

Objectives/Goals: Identifying and indexing rare disease studies is labor intensive, especially in research centers with a large number of trials. To address this gap, we applied natural language processing (NLP) and visualization techniques to develop an efficient pipeline and user-friendly web interface. Our goal is to offer the rare disease study identification (RDSI) tool for adoption by other sites. Methods/Study Population: The RDSI retrieves study information (short and long titles, study abstract) from the IRB system. These descriptive fields are then processed by the MetaMap Lite NLP program for identifying disease terms and standardizing them to UMLS concepts. By terminology identifier mapping, the diseases intersecting with concepts in rare disease databases (Genetic and Rare Disease program and Orphanet) are further scored to pinpoint studies that focus on a rare disease. The web interface displays a scatter bubble chart as an overview of all the rare diseases, with each bubble size proportional to the number of studies for that disease. In addition to the visual navigation, users can search studies by disease name, PI, or IRB number. Search results contain detailed study information as well as the evidence used by algorithms of the pipeline. Results/Anticipated Results: The RDSI identification results and functions were verified manually and spot-checked by several study investigators. The web interface is a self-contained solution available to our staff for various use cases like reporting or environment scan. We have built in a versioning mechanism that logs the date of each major result in the process. Therefore, even as the rare disease data sources evolve over time, we will be able to preserve any historical context or perform updates as needed. The RDSI outputs are replicated to Mayo Clinic’s enterprise data warehouse daily, allowing tech-savvy users to leverage any useful intermediate results at the backend. We anticipate the performance of the rare disease identification to be further enhanced by employing the advancements in AI technology. Discussion/Significance of Impact: The RDSI represents an informatics solution that offers efficiency in identifying and navigating rare disease clinical studies. It features the use of public databases and open-source tools, manifesting return on investment from the broad translational science ecosystem. These considerations are informative and adoptable by other institutions.

Objectives/Goals: This proposal outlines the successful deployment of a research training initiative to support the formation of a Learning Healthcare System. Mayo Clinic Health System (MCHS) rural providers were offered the opportunity to the fundamentals of clinical research via Clinical and Translational Science Awards core curriculum, mentorship, and an online seminar series. Methods/Study Population: MCHS funded 4 key introductory research courses: 1) Manuscript Writing, 2) Grant Writing, 3) Basic Biostatistics, and 4) Essentials of Clinical and Translations Science Program. In addition to course offerings, a Research Interest Group was formed to guide novice rural researchers on topic selection and study design. This cultivated interest to create a 16-month clinical research webinar series offering CME credits. Subsequently, an internal MCHS RFA was launched seeking early-stage investigator pilot proposals focused on rural health. Results/Anticipated Results: In 2023, over 140 MCHS providers enrolled in 324 CCaTS research courses. This training led to the submission of 53 proposals to the inaugural MCHS 2023 RFA, of which 15 were awarded. Additionally, 14 MCHS extramural grants were submitted in 2023. Training efforts expanded in 2024 to include an online research seminar series covering various study topics and providing CME credit, with an approximate attendance up to 196 attendees per session. The second annual MCHS RFA resulted in 4 internal awards, with an additional 22 extramural grant submissions. These collective efforts have increased the number of MCHS first and last author publications and the number of MCHS providers with academic rank. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Leadership’s commitment of resources to educate, mentor, and engage clinicians was crucial to our success and demonstrated a strong return on investment. To maximize impact in community-based practice, continued commitment is needed in the form of protected research time, funding, and research administration support of projects of interest

Background: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is high, with at least 63 million unvaccinated individuals to date. Socioeconomically disadvantaged populations experience lower COVID-19 vaccination rates despite facing a disproportionate COVID-19 burden. Objective: To assess the factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among under-resourced, adult patients. Methods: Participants were patients receiving care at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in St. Paul, Minnesota. Data were collected via multiple modes over 2 phases in 2020 (self-administered electronic survey) and 2021 (study team-administered survey by telephone, self-administered written survey) to promote diversity and inclusion for study participation. The primary outcome was COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Using logistic regression analysis, associations between vaccine acceptance and factors including risk perception, concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine, social determinants of health (SDOH), co-morbidities, pandemic-induced hardships, and stress were assessed by adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: One hundred sixty-eight patients (62.5% female; mean age [SD]: 49.9 [17.4] years; 32% <$20 000 annual household income; 69% <college education) were included in the study. Sixty-one percent of the patients received or were willing to receive the vaccine. Risk perception was positively associated with vaccine acceptance (AOR: 5.3; 95% CI: 2.5, 11.5, P < .001), while concerns about the vaccine (eg, safety, side effects, rapid development of the vaccine, etc.) were negatively associated with vaccine acceptance (all P < .001). SDOH, co-morbidities, pandemic-induced hardships were not associated with vaccine acceptance. Conclusions: Our study in a socioeconomically disadvantaged population suggests that risk perception is associated with an increased likelihood of vaccine acceptance, while concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine are associated with a lower likelihood of vaccine acceptance. As these factors could impact vaccine uptake, consistent, innovative, and context-specific risk communication strategies may improve vaccine coverage in this population.

Objectives: This study was conducted to assess an intervention that was created by a community–academic partnership to address COVID-19 health inequities. We evaluated a community-engaged bidirectional pandemic crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) framework with immigrant and refugee populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A 17-year community-engaged research partnership adopted a CERC framework in March 2020 to address COVID-19 prevention, testing, and socioeconomic impacts with immigrant and refugee groups in southeast Minnesota. The partnership used bidirectional communication between communication leaders and their social networks to refine messages, leverage resources, and advise policy makers. We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation for intervention acceptability, feasibility, reach, adaptation, and sustainability through multisource data, including email communications, work group notes, semistructured interviews, and focus groups. Results: The intervention reached at least 39 000 people in 9 months. It was implemented as intended and perceived efficacy was high. Frequent communication between community and academic partners allowed the team to respond rapidly to concerns and facilitated connection of community members to resources. Framework implementation also led to systems and policy changes to meet the needs of immigrant and refugee populations. Conclusions: Community-engaged CERC is feasible and sustainable and can reduce COVID-19 disparities through shared creation and dissemination of public health messages, enhanced connection to existing resources, and incorporation of community perspectives in regional pandemic mitigation policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected underserved and minority populations in the United States. This is partially attributable to limited access to diagnostic testing from deeply rooted structural inequities precipitating higher infection and mortality rates. We describe the process of establishing a drive-through collection site by leveraging an academic–community partnership between a medical institution and a federally qualified health center in Minnesota. Over 10 weeks, 2006 COVID-19 tests were provided to a socioeconomically disadvantaged population of racial/ethnic minorities and low-income essential workers.

Objective: To determine intervention needs and to gather stakeholder input regarding healthy eating promotion for youth members served at a Boys & Girls Club in Rochester, Minnesota. Design: Mixed-methods design informed by community-based participatory research principles. Setting and Method: Young people completed a dietary habits questionnaire and height and weight measure-ments. Focus groups gathered stakeholder – Boys & Girls Club members, staff, caregivers – perspectives on opportunities to improve children’s healthy eating through the club setting. Content analysis identified major themes in informants’ accounts. Results: Participants identified individual and environmental barriers to healthy eating and opportunities to reduce barriers at this Boys & Girls Club site. Few children met basic nutritional guidelines related to fruit, vegetable, milk and water consumption, and limiting consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and nearly half were overweight/obese. Stakeholders expressed interest in healthy eating promotion and identified multiple individual-level, interpersonal and environmental opportunities to promote healthier eating through the Boys & Girls Club site. Conclusion: Findings build on a growing literature indicating afterschool programmes are uniquely positioned to address health disparities related to paediatric nutrition and obesity, and can be used to inform the design of a multi-layered intervention to address the complexities influencing dietary quality and obesity among diverse and underserved youth.