Community Engagement and Outreach Core

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Puerto Rico is experiencing profound health disparities in available health services and health outcomes. Many of the reported disparities reflect lower availability and quality of health care in the island as compared to many states in the US mainland. The stark disparities that emerge from studies of health and health disparities reflect the relative invisibility of Puerto Rico in health care research, health policy discussion, and island -wide data systems that inform US national data systems. Research programs that collaborate with the community to achieve shared leadership can improve critical health behaviors, increase knowledge, improve practices, affect social norms, lower disease incidence, and reduce poor health outcomes and mortality. The Community Outreach and Engagement Core (CoEC) of the Hispanic Alliance for Translational and Clinical Research (Alliance) aims to increase the multi-sectorial coordination necessary for the large-scale social change needed to improve community health that affect Hispanic communities in Puerto Rico. The long-term goal of CoEC is to catalyze and support meaningful Community Academic Partnerships (CAPs) to improve population health in PR. Our main objectives are to establish the Core proposes to enhance and maintain community participation through a new Community Health & Research Council, to help identify research priorities for health conditions prevalent in Hispanic populations and assist in decisions-making for developing research initiatives addressing community health. Community Health & Research Council will foster trust between communities and academia to increase the participation of the community in Alliance research; and integrating diverse researchers and community settings to identify key health conditions needing attention, and supporting those relationships with mentoring, education, and dissemination. The CoEC will promote and enhance CAPs and employ a community development approach in which citizens have a significant voice in determining the Alliance’s collaborative agenda and resource allocation, while promoting co-learning and empowerment to attend to health and social inequities. The core will build on community and academic strengths and resources to reinforce the relationship with existing partners and expand to include new collaborators. Our goal and objective will be accomplished through the following aims: 1) Enhance and maintain community participation in identifying research priorities for health conditions prevalent in Hispanic populations; 2) Develop the capacity of Alliance investigators, core staff, and community partners to address targeted health conditions through research, evidence-based, community engagement, and mentoring; and 3) Improve dissemination of research designs and finding to stimulate adoption of best practices for community engagement. The CoEC expects to ensure community participation in Alliance decision-making to identify health priorities; to foster community research; and increase knowledge and skills of its members through training, consulting and mentoring; and to disseminate research findings and stimulate adoption of best practices for community engagement.