Core 03: Community Engagement and Outreach Core

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Project Summary: Community Engagement and Outreach Core Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) is a Core of the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center (LA CaTS) that facilitates meaningful community involvement in LA CaTS research at all levels. Expanded use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been noted as a “strategic imperative” to develop effective interventions to address health disparities. Community Engagement is an essential component of the research process. A review of the history of earlier population-based studies, in both majority and minority populations, indicates that requisite to a study's success is the comprehensive involvement of the study population's Community. Over the past nine years, CEO has successfully forged and nourished relationships with various community members some of whom serve on the three active Community Advisory Boards in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. Additionally, the CEO has provided web-based and in-person training to LA CaTS researchers, CAB members, and community organizations on core principles of CBPR, health disparities and social determinants of health, and their application to clinical and translational research. With community-partnership and -input, LA CaTS investigators increased their success in research funding. Additionally, the investigators have been responsive to community-identified health concerns and are aligning those concerns with their research focus. To actively foster academic-community collaborative research, CEO established and has maintained the LA CaTS Community Scholars Program (LaCoSP). Building on the foundation laid for the next funding cycle, the specific aims of the CEO fall into three categories: 1) Expand the reach of LA CaTS into Louisiana communities, allowing greater community involvement in setting research priorities, identifying health priorities of communities, and creating more opportunities for academic-community- Health systems research partnerships in Louisiana; 2) Provide services and resources to LA CaTS investigators and community partners to facilitate bi-directional and trusted community engagement and outreach activities, community-engaged research, and effective translation of research findings; and 3) Create and maintain strategic partnerships between researchers, healthcare practitioners, and lay communities that will promote community-engaged translational/clinical research and health promotion leading to mitigation of health disparities.