 Research shows that digital inequalities map health inequalities. How then can we think about building health communication, infrastructures that are sensitized to the needs of communities that face inequalities? I will present today my talk on a culture-centered community grounded approach, and I will take you to the city of Indiana in Gary, Indiana. Gary is an African-American city, which is located in the south of Chicago, primarily African-American, and heart disease is the number one killer of African-Americans. Within this context then, we worked on developing a culturally centered project that involved African-American community members in addressing the kinds of health information solutions that met their needs. What you have here, for instance, are images of health information materials that brought community members at the center of decision-making. Community members sat at the table in figuring out how to bring their own images, their own lived experiences, and their stories in creating these materials. One of the things we saw in the past is that much health information is disseminated that has images of Caucasians. Community members noted their absence from these images. Therefore, they worked on redesigning materials that connected with their stories, with their lived experiences, and with the experiences that they go through in negotiating health. Health information, information on prevention does gets grounded in the stories of the community. Another aspect of this program was incorporating healthcare providers, churches, and decision-makers in the process of community infrastructure. When we had physicians and providers talking together with churches, health information developed in multiple ways. The media became sites of storytelling working hand in hand with churches. For instance, churches developed community gospel singing programs where church pastors talked about the importance of health. What you see, therefore, is a comprehensive approach toward integrating health information in the lifeblood of the community. Materials such as video materials, materials that went on television, materials that went on social media, all incorporated stories of community members as they connected to these images of health. Dialogue and listening then became two key elements in ensuring that culture was incorporated in how information was designed. So when you see a website like this on heart health, the website is not just tailored on providing or delivering health information, but also on ensuring that cultural stories, cultural narratives get incorporated into the story. Another element of the community programming was in ensuring that educational materials that were created were tied to community cultural norms and community ideas. Schools, community forums, churches, all became spaces where different community groups took on the messaging and turned it into their own lived experiences and stories. You hear, for instance, see stories of church community groups and church gatherings and health fair where community members have a chance to dialogue with the providers such that health information is not just passed down one way from the provider to the patient, but it comes two way. The community articulates its voices, its solutions, and then it creates the solutions. Here, for instance, you have community gardens as one example where the community worked together in identifying what are the food deserts, what are the problems in accessing food and developing a food garden where they could secure access to healthy food. Through these processes then, it was ensured that the community addressed that the kinds of solutions that see fit. In a school program that was based out of this, school children took on the message of heart health and developed school programs, programs with healthy cooking, programs with exercising that once again tied in the cultural narrative and built on the cultural storytelling. At the end of the day then, when you actually had social media and emerging media incorporated into the community storytelling, there were one part of a big infrastructure of communication. Communication was not just information placed on one media, but rather information that built into a wide variety of media. What we were able to see as a result of this program is health communication led to changes in behavior, changes in attitude, and changes in behavioral intention. The question then is if communities can be activated to make changes at the community level, can these models further be disseminated in other contexts? You have an example here where you see community members are talking to the media and taking health in their own hands to push the genders of the media. The broader question then for our group here in the Ideas Lab is can we use such kinds of community driven models that put the community at the center to catalyze other communities to enable and engage with behavior change? Thank you.