Maureen McGarrity-Yoder and her community partner, Alicia Rodriguez Pla, received $5,000 in funding from the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative’s (SHERC) Community-Campus Partnership Support (CCPS) for developing their partnership for collaborative work addressing rheumatoid arthritis (RA), associations with nutrition, microbiome health and function, and disease activity, especially in people who are underrepresented in this area of research.
McGarrity-Yoder, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor in Northern Arizona University’s College of Nursing. Rodriguez-Pla, MD, PhD, MPH, is the director of the vasculitis program at the Mayo Clinic of Arizona and a senior associate consultant in rheumatology.
“Dr. Rodriguez-Pla and I will explore RA-related nutritional and microbiome health equity research opportunities in northern Arizona,” McGarrity-Yoder said. “We will continue to build this relationship in the development of a SHERC Pilot Project Program grant application, and, eventually, an external NIH grant application that will include other NAU and community partners.”
CCPS funding is dedicated to developing relationships between NAU faculty, from all disciplines that can contribute to health equity, and their community partners. Since July 2018, CCPS has funded 16 partnerships through bi-annual competitive application rounds totaling more than $70,000.
Funded CCPS partnership development projects have addressed maternal-child health, substance use disorders, disability inclusion and access, community access to healthy foods, disease prevention, rural health, mental health, foster care youth, care services coordination, environmental health, violence prevention, and housing.
Importance of health equity and RA
According to Yoder, RA is an autoimmune disease that significantly affects the lives of over 1 million Americans, including almost 30,000 Arizonans. Although advances have improved medical treatment, many diagnosed with this debilitating disease are still unable to stop its progression.
“Evidence indicates significant ethnic and racial health disparities exist in those diagnosed with RA, such as higher rates of disability in African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian individuals as compared to white individuals,” Yoder said. “Diet and disease activity in RA is not well understood, but evidence suggests 25-44% of individuals diagnosed with RA feel their diet affects disease activity.”
She said that individuals with RA have been found to have lower diet quality compared to the national average, and individuals with low diet quality have been found to report higher pain levels. Gut microbiome health, which is shaped by trillions of microbes living within the intestinal tract, may be an important piece of this puzzle that has not yet been thoroughly explored, Yoder said.
“The health of the gut microbiome is directly impacted by dietary intake, but little is known about this relationship compared to disease activity in RA. Further research is needed to understand, address, and eliminate disparities in RA diagnosis and management to allow for optimal health for all diagnosed with RA.”
According to Community Engagement Core lead Nicolette Teufel-Shone, associate director of the Center for Community Health and Engaged Research and professor in the Department of Health Sciences, a critical part of community partnerships with university investigators is developing trust, which takes an investment of time and often money to allow potential partners to meet face-to-face or even to travel to a conference together gaining information on common interests as a way to inspire collaborative projects that advance health equity.
“SHERC’s CCPS mechanism has supported a range of partnerships. Community-Campus collaboration is key to addressing health equity,” Teufel-Shone said. “These partnerships merge life and practice-based experience with academic expertise to yield research strategies that are feasible and address the needs of the community. This work holds great promise for guiding sustainable approaches to changing health care practice and ultimately achieving optimal community health.”
McGarrity-Yoder’s doctoral dissertation research focused on associations between diet quality and disease activity in RA. She has one publication associated with this study, “Diet Quality and Disease Activity in Rheumatoid Arthritis.”