COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Health Serv.
Sec. Implementation Science
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frhs.2025.1602103
This article is part of the Research TopicEmpowering Community Stakeholders: Novel Approaches to Address Health InequitiesView all 7 articles
"Making our Voices Count": Patient Action Groups as a Strategy to Engage People with Lived Experience in Implementation of an Intervention for Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy
Provisionally accepted- 1Center for Women's Health Research, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- 2Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- 3Equity for Moms and Babies Realized Across Chatham, Chatham, NC, United States
- 4ACHIEVE Patient Action Group, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- 5Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- 6Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- 7Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
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Community-based clinics are a crucial site for the detection and response to Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy (HDP), yet many sites lack a standard protocol to address hypertensive emergencies. Moreover, interventions to address this disparity lack a patient centered lens that inform implementation in a community setting. To address these gaps, the Advancing Community and Clinical Care for Childbirth-related Hypertension: Implementation, Engagement and Valuing Equity (ACHIEVE) study is engaging patients with lived experience of HDP. The study integrates community engagement and implementation science to inform adaptation of a hypertension bundle in outpatient clinics. We have created two Patient Action Groups (PAGs) involving members from populations impacted by HDP to guide our community-academic-clinic-coalition team's iterative processes for bundle implementation and resource development. One PAG is comprised of Black and the other Latina/e birthing people, all of whom have lived experience with HDP. Both PAGs meet monthly, led by a racially/ethnically, culturally, or linguistically congruent facilitator. Agendas are co-created, and activities structured to build relationships, trust, and capacity. PAGs review ACHIEVE strategies and materials to spur recommendations and improve respectful care. To facilitate reciprocal exchange, PAG facilitators meet with the ACHIEVE community engagement team and share updates at monthly partner coalition meetings. We recommend PAGs as a power-shifting strategy to ensure those most affected by inequitable perinatal outcomes can engage in research in a way they feel safe, respected and heard. Researchers can also increase trustworthiness by listening and translating patient-generated ideas into strategies that improve clinical care.
Keywords: Maternal health, Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, Community engaged intervention, Workgroup, Advisory board, engagement, implementation science, adaptation
Received: 28 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hodges, Fatima, McHugh, Medearis-Costello, Barnett, Farahi, Greene-Jones, Jones, Ledford, Lewis, Lopez, Smith-Janey, Quezada, Menard and Lightfoot. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jasmine Hodges, jasmine_hodges@med.unc.edu
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