Community Engagement & Clinical Support (CECS) Core

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The Center for Alaska Native Health Research (CANHR) has become nationally recognized for the quality of its research to reduce disease and promote health among Alaska Native people and its role as a center of excellence in the use of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) with minority populations. The Community Engagement and Clinical Support (CECS) Core has been indispensable in: (1) obtaining regional health corporation approval and tribal agreement to conduct research; (2) participant recruitment and developing clinical data collection protocols; (3) engaging Alaska Native participants in setting CANHR's research agenda; (4) working with community co-researchers to develop culturally relevant and understandable dissemination practices and materials; and (5) building local capacity to conduct research by training local residents as field research assistants. These practices have resulted in trusting and interactive community partnerships leading to the expansion of our research agenda to intervention research. The purpose of the proposed CECS Core is to continue these community partnerships in order to foster research-based knowledge to improve the health of Alaska Native people. The Specific Aims of the CECS Core include: Specific Aim 1: Facilitating and sustaining community-CANHR partnerships by engaging the community in all phases of the research process. Specific Aim 2: Supporting researchers in the development and implementation of linguistically and culturally appropriate research protocols. Specific Aim 3: Providing technical capacity to collect clinical measures and biological samples in the field for CANHR researchers. Specific Aim 4: Processing all biological specimens collected in the field and maintaining a secure biological storage facility for CANHR investigators and Alaska Native participants.