Emily BleiweisThe PATIENTS Program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy has taken a bold step forward in its mission to center patient voices and advance health equity with the launch of its latest initiative: PATIENTS Going National.
With this new effort announced in December, the program is expanding its reach across the country — forging meaningful partnerships with communities that have historically been underrepresented or underserved in health research. By collaborating directly with people who live these experiences, PATIENTS Going National aims to reshape the future of health care from the ground up.
The program will focus on building partnerships with key population groups, including:
- Black/African American communities
- Individuals affected by cancer and cardiovascular disease
- Patients engaged in community clinics, health systems, and hospitals
- People living with disabilities
- Individuals navigating mental health challenges
- Older adults and seniors
- Communities engaged in reproductive health care
These populations were thoughtfully selected based on three key criteria: their alignment with the PATIENTS Program’s strategic priorities, the size and reach of each community, and the potential to drive meaningful progress toward greater equity in health outcomes.
For the past 13 years, the PATIENTS Program has worked to transform research one community at a time by creating a path for health equity through working with communities of patients, their care providers, and policymakers to help co-develop research.
“The PATIENTS Program has a deep understanding of how to effectively partner with communities using the 10-Step Framework for Continuous Patient Engagement that we developed in 2012,” said C. Daniel Mullins, PhD, professor of practice, sciences, and health outcomes research at the School of Pharmacy and executive director of the PATIENTS Program.
“We have continued to develop the evidence base for what authentic, trustworthy research and community-academic partnerships look like. Other research institutions use our methods and tools for local application of our evidence-based approach to patient-centered research. That motivated us to have a greater national impact by expanding the reach of our program so that many more patients and communities can be healthier because of our research.”
A National Impact on Communities
With $750,000 in funding from AstraZeneca, Bayer, and Novo Nordisk, PATIENTS Going National will scale up the program’s evidence-based approach for patient and community engagement to increase the reach and impact of the PATIENTS Program to communities in addition to West Baltimore.
But what constitutes a community?
After speaking with patients, community leaders, advisors, and research participants, the program opted to look beyond geography with its national initiative and to instead look at different types of communities.
The PATIENTS Program uses the term “community” to refer to any way in which patients or individuals come together around something they share, recognizing that despite that common identity the community may — and typically will be — quite diverse.
The PATIENTS Program views communities in this context not as passive recipients of interventions, but rather as active co-developers in the research process through continuous and sustained engagement.
“This approach allows patients and people to identify themselves and their communities rather than be labeled by disconnected outsiders,” Mullins said. “For geographic communities, this avoids labeling people based on their ZIP code. For disease states, this supports patient communities in shaping research priorities and ensuring culturally relevant solutions that reflect the lived realities of individuals facing these challenges. For faith-based and other civic organizations, this leverages individual and organizational influence and ability to mobilize underrepresented communities, especially marginalized communities where trust in health care and research may be low.”
“A community represents a connected group that has a need, is open to actively participating in research with the PATIENTS Program, and perceives the potential for a research partnership with the PATIENTS Program as mutually beneficial,” he added.
