CBPR charrettes: Harnessing community expertise to advance equity in community-academic research partnerships: A practitioner's perspective

There are a number of initiatives in North Carolina and across the nation to advance and integrate community based organizations into the community academic public health research arena. Many of these have arisen from community engagement initiatives of academic institutions. When community perspectives are fragmented, however, they are weak and can be easily divided and marginalized. It is critical for community members to independently determine their goals and objectives so that they can effectively represent community needs and interests in community-academic partnerships. Acknowledging and cultivating community power is a key aspect of successful community-based participatory research. This session will expand on the CBPR Charrette discussion to highlight a complementary NC-based initiative linked to national efforts to develop a community-driven network to ensure community-based organizations have the skills, knowledge and capacity to engage in community-academic research partnerships focused on addressing health disparities.