摘要：Community health centers (CHCs) are important settings for research aimed at reducing health disparities. However, CHCs pose many challenges to research at patient, provider, and system levels. We summarized lessons learned from a multimethod, formative study to develop intervention strategies for improving colorectal cancer screening in CHCs, and make recommendations for future research. The call for research in “real world” settings such as CHCs must be matched with greater understanding of the challenges, as well as the resources to meet those challenges. Policy and research agendas increasingly call for efforts to reduce health disparities. Community health centers (CHCs) are a central component of the US primary care safety net. Their mission is to provide comprehensive health care for medically underserved patients including racial/ethnic minorities, Medicaid recipients, and low-income employed persons who are uninsured or underinsured but ineligible for Medicaid coverage. 1 , 2 Thus, CHCs are an important setting for achieving these agendas. We describe lessons learned about conducting health services research in urban CHCs from a multimethod, formative study designed to develop interventions to increase colorectal cancer screening.
