Engaging clergy and congregants as “lay-scientists” to promote community health and wellbeing in rural and urban Alaska: a community-engaged pilot study

Introduction The globally implemented Our Voice citizen science method has addressed social and structural health-related barriers in many community settings. Currently, however, this participatory action research method has not been adapted and tested in faith-based settings, which are trusted and well positioned to reach communities for health promotion and chronic disease prevention. The purpose of this study is to describe our process for adapting and piloting Our Voice and report lessons that will meaningfully engage faith-based communities in health promotion. Methods Prior to Our Voice implementation, we used a community-academic design approach and sought input and recommendations from faith community members to increase reach and ensure Our Voice content and procedures aligned with cultural traditions. We then recruited three churches in which to pilot Our Voice and collected key process data through a baseline survey (e.g., lay-scientist demographics, physical activity behavior) and community notes (e.g., meeting attendance, lay-scientist engagement) to inform refinement of procedures. Trained research staff conducted objective environmental audits using a validated church environmental audit tool to describe the health promotion environment of each setting. Trained teams of clergy and congregants i.e., “lay-scientists”, next conducted an Our Voice environmental assessment using the Discovery Tool mobile app to evaluate each participating church’s space, features and proximal built environments. Results The lay-scientist teams collected a total of 216 geo-tagged photos with narratives which were used to identify church-specific themes and relevant action plans to address priority needs. Example themes and action plans include: 1) Implementing congregational health needs assessments (e.g., brief online surveys for the broader congregation); 2) displaying health messaging across the church building (e.g., physical activity and healthy eating recommendations); and 3) encouraging both congregation- and community-wide health promotion (e.g., church-sponsored health summits, gardening initiatives with local schools). Discussion Through multi-dimensional data audits collected by clergy and congregants, the Our Voice method fostered meaningful local data collection and analysis to identify and address community factors that may impact health. Findings provide evidence that action plans developed and implemented by faith-based community members may have a broad reach beyond the congregation and create potential opportunities for co-developing community-based health promotion programming.