Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core

University Of Louisville, Louisville KY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The Community Engagement and Outreach Core (CEO) plays a pivotal role in achieving the Louisville Clinical and Translational Research Center’s (LCTRC) mission to build clinical and translational (C&T) research capacity that addresses the severe health problems among Kentucky residents. With the IDEA award, the CEO will leverage existing and build new community-to-bedside alliances to strengthen our workforce, resources, and infrastructure to address the burden of chronic disease among KY residents. We will target residents of urban Louisville and 18 rural counties within the Owensboro area since these locations suffer disproportionately from chronic diseases. The CEO will foster safe, respectful, and multi-directional communication so community members, researchers and other stakeholders can share health concerns, knowledge and research ideas/findings using Community Knowledge Exchange Sessions. We will use a newly revamped health literacy framework to empower our target audience to use attained health knowledge to make informed decisions about their health and willingness to participate in C&T research. We will support both community and academic researchers so they can collaborate on clinical and translational research using community based participatory (CBPR) principles. CBPR seeks to actively engage the community in all phases of the research process, while addressing community-identified health concerns. Researchers will take advantage of LCTRC resources, guidance, and input from key stakeholders, especially community members, community partners, and faculty mentors. In collaboration with LCTRC cores, the CEO will offer investigators and research staff training in C&T, CPBR, and cultural respect. This will provide researchers with essential strategies to overcome the barriers (e.g., distrust, lack of health literacy) to recruit and retain study participants in C&T research. In collaboration with a community-engaged advisory board and LCTRC cores, the CEO will help make all health education materials, communications, and resources accessible to all populations. This multi-pronged approach will build trust needed to recruit and retain our audience into community-led and investigator-initiated C&T research. In addition, empowerment of researchers and the population will inspire them to make voluntary changes to reduce the burden of disease at the individual-, community-, and professional-levels.