Community engagement: An essential component of CTSAs

Background: Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) are transforming the conduct of research at health science centers and health science center universities. A required, key component of all CTSA applications and awards is a Community Engagement (CE) Core. This paper will describe how a CE Core was planned and implanted in a funded CTSA, and in what types of research it has been engaged. Methods: When a CTSA is planned, it is important to involve faculty researchers who have a track record in community-based research and have conducted community based participatory research (CBPR) if possible, as well as identified community partners. A community partner has generally been involved in working with researchers with identifying community problems that would benefit from clinical and/or translational research. The community partner contributes ideas for clinical research and participates in grant-writing as a sign of their commitment to the process of research collaboration while the university researchers are committed to including the contributions of the community partners in the collaborative process of grant writing. Results: Robust inclusion of a collaboratively planned Community Engagement Core will increase an application's chance of a positive review, and will allow for true adaptation of translational research at an institution. It will also lay a foundation for carrying out collaborative projects when grant receives funding. Conclusions: This paper will provide concrete examples of collaborative projects that were planned with our community partner, and how we have established our community engagement core to interact with our community and university research stakeholders.