Utah AHEC Research Mini Grant Grantee’s CBPR Research Published!
Utah AHEC Scholar Karishma Shah and her team were awarded Utah AHEC Research Mini Grant to work on a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) titled "Centering Community Voices to Address Healthcare Inequities in Underserved Utah Populations." Their research was recently published in Patient Experience Journal.
Link to the article, https://pxjournal.org/journal/vol13/iss2/15/
Key Highlights of the Study
1. Patient experience is a critical measure to reduce health disparities
The study emphasizes that evaluating patient experience across different demographic groups is essential for identifying healthcare disparities and understanding where differences exist.
2. COVID-19 heightened the focus on health disparities
The authors note that the pandemic exposed and intensified disparities affecting minorities and individuals with lower socioeconomic status, increasing the urgency of measuring and addressing these gaps.
3. Electronic health records can help identify disparities
By integrating patient demographic information with patient experience data, healthcare organizations can more effectively quantify disparities and pinpoint populations that may be receiving lower-quality experiences.
5. Addressing structural and social barriers is necessary for improvement
The study concludes that measurement alone is not enough. Healthcare systems must also address social determinants of health and structural disparities to achieve meaningful improvements in patient experience.
6. Community Health Workers can use health disparity data to provide targeted outreach.
Community Health Workers (CHWs) can play a critical role in translating these insights into action. For example, if patient experience data reveal lower satisfaction scores or reduced engagement among a specific population, CHWs can conduct targeted outreach to better understand the root causes and connect individuals with appropriate services. They can provide culturally responsive education, facilitate communication between patients and providers, and help build trust in communities that may have historically faced barriers to care. By focusing efforts where disparities are most pronounced, CHWs help ensure that resources are directed to the patients who need them most.