PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
In the United States underserved and socially vulnerable populations have endured higher rates
and disparities of COVID-19 infection, morbidity, and mortality. This disproportionate burden
has shown the light on the root causes of COVID-19 disparities such as longstanding systemic
racial bias in health care delivery, discrimination, and poor social determinants of health that
lead to health disparities for medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and
obesity, all of which increase risk and susceptibility to COVID-19 and its sequalae. To address
these root causes, academic and other research institutions and health care systems must shift
their lens from one that focuses solely on changing behaviors among underserved and
vulnerable populations. Behaviors among health care and research institutions must change to
breakdown the structural barriers to trust, testing, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19. Prior
to asking patients and community members to trust in research and researchers, the focus
should be on radical institutional transformation to advance trustworthiness.
Trying to address social, ethical, and behavioral issues (SEBI) influencing access acceptability
and uptake of COVID-19 testing during a pandemic is extremely challenging, yet achievable
when there are existing community-academic partnerships. The distinction between trust and
trustworthiness suggests that trustworthiness is an antecedent to trust. Our proposed study will
employ a continuous engagement approach to advance institutional trustworthiness and
improve the strength of an existing community-engaged research (CEnR) partnership as well as
develop recommendations for the formation of similar inter-institutional partnerships with
community organizations in underserved populations.
In collaboration with community and community-based pharmacy partners, our Aims are:
Aim 1: Codesign a sustainable model for trustworthy CEnR partnerships to address SEBI of
COVID-19 testing
Aim 2: Assess best practices of trustworthy CEnR partnerships to address COVID-19 testing
SEBI factors
Aim 3: Codevelop an ethically-congruent memorandum of commitment (MOC) template for
CEnR partnerships for COVID-19 testing to advance trust through trustworthiness,
transparency, and respect