Young Men's Health Matters: Implementing a Community-Academic Partnership in an Urban Federally Qualified Health Center.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches are being leveraged more and more in efforts to improve health equity. Informing the building of community-academic partnerships, CBPR draws on the community's expressed needs and engages stakeholders in future intervention development. To date, however, little has been published on such efforts targeting the health of young Black men (ages 18-24), despite this population's disproportionate need. In this paper, we describe the formation of a community-academic partnership in a federally qualified health center, with the goal of improving the health of young Black men in Detroit, Michigan. After conducting a needs assessment, we built upon existing networks to form a Community Advisory Board (CAB). We held three community forums during which CAB members highlighted key health issues in their community and described how they could be addressed. We developed a plan for future research and community engagement based on community input. Finally, we provide insights on community engagement strategies, forum structure, setting boundaries, trust-building, and valuable information in addressing the inequities in health that affect young Black men.

Myocardial infarction and heart failure in the db/db diabetic mouse.

Clinical studies have reported that the incidence and severity of myocardial infarction is significantly greater in diabetics compared with nondiabetics after correction for all other risk factors. The majority of studies investigating the pathophysiology of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury have focused on otherwise healthy animals. At present, there is a paucity of experimental investigations on the pathophysiology of heart failure in diabetic animals. We hypothesized that the severity of myocardial reperfusion injury and the development of congestive heart failure would be markedly enhanced in the db/db diabetic mouse. Accordingly, we studied the effects of varying durations of in vivo myocardial ischemia and reperfusion on the incidence of heart failure in db/db diabetic mice. Nondiabetic and db/db diabetic mice (10 wk of age) were subjected to 30, 45, or 60 min of left coronary artery occlusion and 28 days of reperfusion. Survival at 24 h of reperfusion was 100% in nondiabetic mice subjected to 30 min of myocardial ischemia and 88% in nondiabetic mice subjected to 45 min of myocardial ischemia. In contrast, survival was 53% in db/db diabetic mice subjected to 30 min of myocardial ischemia and 44% in db/db mice after 45 min of myocardial ischemia. Prolonged survival in nondiabetic mice was not significantly attenuated when compared during the 28-day follow-up period with all groups experiencing >90% survival. Prolonged survival was significantly decreased in db/db mice after both 30 and 45 min of myocardial ischemia compared with sham controls. Furthermore, we observed a significant degree or left ventricular dilatation, cardiac hypertrophy, and cardiac contractile dysfunction in db/db mice subjected to 45 min of myocardial ischemia and 28 days reperfusion. In nondiabetic mice subjected to 45 min of myocardial ischemia, we failed to observe any changes in left ventricular dimensions or fractional shortening. These studies provide a feasible experimental model system for the investigation of heart failure secondary to acute myocardial infarction in the db/db diabetic mouse.