Developing a Culturally Appropriate Training Program for Human Subjects Certification with Inner-City African American Community Health Workers

In this presentation we explore lessons learned from developing a tailored Human Subject Certification (CREC certification) training curriculum to give voice, build capacity, and engage inner-city community residents in community health disparities research.

Current Institutional Review Board policy requires that all parties involved in research projects with data collection pass the human subjects certification exam. However, when working within lower socioeconomic status communities, access to education (e.g., computer literacy) and English language proficiency has the potential to impede human subject certification. Therefore, our project presents an innovative strategy for training inner-city community health workers.

The training program prepared 22 community residents with a basic research foundation and basic understanding of the regulatory procedures when conducting research. The trainings included research methods, NIH Human Subject Certification (CREC certification), communication, interview techniques etiquette, and self presentation over six extensive training sessions. The program had a 100% retention rate and all participants became certified. Moreover, the support shared and the comradeship expressed between the trainees in the training sessions was an unanticipated outcome of this project. Furthermore, we explore the lessons that we learned developing the tailored CREC curriculum to prepare, give voice, and build capacity for community health workers preparing to engage in health disparities research.