Fellowship focuses on urban health issues in Ohio

CLEVELAND - Participants of a new health fellowship program that started this month said they're hopeful they can help local communities better understand urban issues in northeast Ohio.

The 18-month program links community groups and agencies to academic research scientists affiliated with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The program aims to help five fellows produce practical data that agencies can use to better serve their communities.

"This is a potentially powerful program because the research could directly affect the local population," said Dr. Jacqueline Matloub of the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods at CWRU. She is among the group of people who created the fellowship.

The fellowship is part-time and allows participants to keep working in their respective agencies. It will include classes for a year that range from research techniques to statistics. Research projects will then be finished over a six-month period.

Elaine A. Borawski, also of the prevention center, told the Plain Dealer (http://bit.ly/LdxIvQ) that the ultimate goal is to produce "significant, accurate and practical research that agencies can use to better serve their communities."

Borawski noted the program will help link academic researchers to local agencies that don't often know what to do with data they collect about their communities. She said results could help track health patterns in disadvantaged populations, and possibly help win grants to alleviate it.

The program -- Partners in Education, Evaluation and Research or PEER -- is being funded through a $200,000 grant from the National Institute of Health. It covers stipends, laptops and classroom training equipment. The program will train 15 fellows over the next five years.

Borawski said there's a similar, 10-week partnership between several Boston universities, but she called their fellowship more comprehensive and long term than other community-based training.

There are no official research projects yet, but the newspaper reports some fellows have begun exploring issues like how location affects a person's health, and the impact of inner-city community gardens on nearby neighborhoods.

Lena Grafton, an inaugural fellow who wants to study breast cancer, emphasized the fellowship's long-term benefit.

"At the end of 18 months, I will still be able to use those same tactics, those same resources to continue the work," she said.