Community Engagement and Outreach Core

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During the last four years, the Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core has conducted, promoted, and advanced community-engaged and practice-based research in northern New England. We established community engagement councils, built enduring community partnerships, strengthened our practice based research network, and built a unique research navigator program to listen and learn from the communities we served. Building on those successes, we seek to further enhance our efforts through innovative approaches to community engagement and outreach. Improving public health depends on successful translation of findings from basic science to clinical research and subsequently to clinical practice. This translational spectrum requires strong connections to engaged communities. As we have seen over the last year, there have been tremendous scientific successes in the fight against Covid-19, but not all communities have embraced them or understood or trusted the science behind them. Engaging communities from the start, and conducting research that is meaningful to them, is critical to the success of translational research and to building trust in and understanding of science. Thus the long term goals of the CEO Core are to provide opportunities for communities to identify their priorities for research; to build a robust structure and process for engagement between communities and investigators; to engage investigators in research targeted at reducing health disparities in our communities; and, to promote research across northern New England by expanding our partnership with clinical and community-based organizations, State Departments of Health, and our partner, the Northern New England Practice Based Research Network, formerly the Dartmouth/Northern New England CO-OP. Our specific aims for this Core will focus on strategies to address the health needs of the communities in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. As such, we will engage investigators in research to address health disparities and inequities in northern New England, consistent with national Healthy People 2030 goals and community priorities. We will also increase northern New England community engagement capacity to identify and prioritize community health challenges and participation in research. Finally, we will expand current partnerships among academic centers, rural health care practices, Federally Qualified Health Centers, community organizations and the Northern New England Practice Based Research Network to increase community-based research projects. By accomplishing these aims, with a commitment to diversity and inclusion and leveraging the expertise of the NNE-CTR Cores, we will implement a system of community engagement, prioritize community health needs, and integrate social determinants and health equity into our research priorities. In sum, we will create an environment in which academic centers, healthcare organizations, community-based organizations, and community members can collaboratively pursue research that is essential to improving health outcomes across northern New England.