Community Engagement for Early Recognition and Immediate Action in Stroke (CEERIAS)

Minorities have worse outcomes after stroke. We propose a community-partnered intervention to overcome a critical problem facing minorities in Chicago: delayed arrival to the hospital after stroke. While change in knowledge is relevant, change in behavior is more important to patients and stakeholders. We will develop a novel intervention based on multi-ethnic focus groups, deliver it around 2 south side Chicago hospitals using community-trained Stroke Promoters, and compare its effectiveness in changing proportions of stroke patients arriving to the hospital 1) within 3 hours after onset and 2) by emergency medical services. We will use a time series analysis pre- and post-intervention at target hospitals and also compare post-intervention results with other Chicago and St. Louis hospitals (controls). We have partnered with multiple organizations, patients, and community leaders, included them in every step of the project development, and crafted a plan to ensure patient-centeredness.