Community Engagement
Studies suggest that community and stakeholder engagement in research is the key to tailoring best practices for specific populations. With the uptake of translational sciences, researchers are shifting focus from pure scientific discovery to application in real world practice settings. There is a critical difference between simply obtaining feedback from the community and giving them real power necessary to affect the research process. The latter results in outcomes that can benefit individuals, families, communities, and populations as a whole. Institutions are increasingly recruiting individuals to help with engaging communities in research.
The introductory online module highlights key concepts related to community and stakeholder engagement in research. Learners will be able to define community engaged research and its importance in addressing health disparities, identify key principles, and recognize stakeholders who should be engaged in translational research studies.
Resources
Resources: Literature:
Community Engagement: Public participation that involves dynamic relationships and promotes a mutual exchange of information, ideas, and public agencies in a context of partnership and reciprocity. Community engagement can include varying degrees of involvement, decision-making, and control.
Community Engaged Research (CEnR): Community-engaged research centers around fostering collaborations with and among groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations with the goal of addressing issues that affect the wellbeing of the people within the group.
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR): A partnership approach to research that equitably involves, for example, community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process and in which all partners contribute expertise and share decision making and ownership.
Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging individuals or organizations who have a personal or professional interest (or a stake) in the health or healthcare-related strategy that can be informed by the research evidence. These are people who are outside the research enterprise but are central in the pursuit of knowledge creation and who can contribute to the mission in a meaningful way.
Interviews
Kenisha Bethea, MPH
Research Program Leader
Duke CTSI Community-Engaged Research Initiative
& Duke Center for The Study of Aging and Human Development
Leonor Corsino, MD
Associate Professor, Duke Department of Medicine – Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition
Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Duke School of Medicine MD Program
Co-Director, Duke CTSI, Community-Engaged Research Initiative
Co-Director, Duke Masters in Biomedical Science
Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, PhD, MPN, RN
Associate Professor, Duke University School of Nursing
Dorothy L. Powell Term Chair of Nursing
Co-Director, Duke CTSI, Community-Engaged Research Initiative
