Establishing a Community-Based Participatory Research Partnership in a Rural Community in the Midwest

Background: Rural health disparities are well-documented. "New destination" communities in predominantly rural states have emerged in recent years, with immigrants moving into these communities for better opportunities. Few reports of community-based participatory partnerships with these communities have been previously described in the literature.

Objectives: We report on the formation and implementation of a community–academic partnership to reduce health disparities in a rural Midwestern community.

Methods: We describe the creation of a partnership between the University of Iowa (UI) Prevention Research Center (PRC) and the Ottumwa, Iowa community.

Results: We describe the partnership formation, activities, and results of the implementation of the partnership, and challenges encountered, including balancing attention to different health disparities populations and ensuring mechanisms for hearing from the different voices in the community.

Conclusions: Our experience suggests the importance and challenge of considering the multiple dimensions of health disparities in rural new destination Midwestern communities.