Community Engagement Core Oversees Organized Response to COVID-19

A virtual meeting of the LATIN-19 leadership committee, including Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, top left, and Leonor Corsino, middle row right, co-directors of CERI.

A virtual meeting of the LATIN-19 leadership committee, including Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, top left, and Leonor Corsino, middle row right, co-directors of CERI.

The CTSI’s community engagement core, the Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERI), has been working with community members, community-based organizations, and academic researchers to disseminate information the community at large on the latest evidence-based research regarding the virus in order to help alleviate its disproportionate negative effects. CERI’s signature programs have all moved to the virtual realm but this has given the Core the ability to forge even stronger ties with the Durham community and to report community-engaged research efforts back to stakeholders on a continual basis. CERI has reinforced internal and external communication plans to ensure that the Durham and Duke communities are informed and engaged with regard to COVID-19 clinical trials, best PPE practices, vaccine roll-out efforts, etc.

CERI has worked with community leaders and Duke staff and clinicians to form three Durham COVID-19 coalitions groups: LATIN-19, African American COVID-19 Taskforce (AACT+), and Durham’s Partnership for Seniors and More, in which bi-directional communication is robust thanks to embedded staff and faculty supporting these efforts. Coalition members comprise leaders from community-rooted organizations, community members, healthcare providers and agencies, community health workers, local government representatives, and other key citizen stakeholders with connections to local, regional, and national resources.

CERI areas of focus in recent months include:

Health Disparities: Our Community Engagement programs have helped advance NIH’s priorities to address health disparities research by: 1) supporting research that directly examines causes and solutions to community-identified health disparities through CTSI’s Population Health Improvement Awards, and 2) enhancing the capacity of Duke investigators and their community partners to conduct health disparities research through the CEnR consultation service, e-library, expanded partnerships with the Special Populations Core and Duke’s REACH Equity Center, trainings, and partnership with North Carolina Central University (an HBCU co-located with Duke in Durham).

COVID-19: 1) Supporting COVID-19 research that directly examines causes and solutions to community-identified health disparities through our PHI Awards; 2) Disseminating trusted information related to the COVID-19 pandemic in response to community requests for vetted information; 3) Providing direct and meaningful leadership and administrative support for local COVID-19 Community Coalition groups; 4) Facilitating community partner opportunities for meaningful engagement in COVID research efforts throughout the CERI portfolio of programs.

Increasing Participation of Women and Minorities in Research: CTSI is addressing imperatives from NIH to increase the participation of women and minorities in research as both subjects and leaders of research. CERI’s partnership with the AME Zion Health Equity Advocates & Liaisons (HEAL) program is largely focused on increasing participation of minorities in clinical research, especially African Americans in North Carolina. The clergy in the AME Zion HEAL partnership are trained as ambassadors for clinical research and with CERI have been engaging in community events that address trust and transparency in clinical research and promote participation. These events have reached 17 clergy and hundreds of community members. Additionally, many of CTSI’s Population Health Improvement Awardees are engaging women and minorities as research subjects in their research projects, and the vast majority of the Principal Investigators supported in both the academic and community partner side are women or underrepresented minorities in the biomedical and behavioral sciences.

Patients and Community Members as Partners in Research: CERI’s programs and services are grounded in improving the clinical research enterprise’s ability (at Duke and beyond) to engage patients and communities as partners in research. CERI’s signature programs facilitate this engagement. For example, the Community Consultation Studios feature community experts whose lived experience help shape research study design. AME Zion HEAL partners are instrumental in providing the patient perspective for research protocols to Duke investigators, with a strong focus on advising on effective ways to better reach and engage patients and communities.