Strengthening community engagement in the CTSA program

Background: In the conceptualization of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, community engagement (CE) was a required core area and seen as critical to shortening the time between research discovery and application. At the request of Congress, the Institute of Medicine formed a committee in 2012 to review the CTSA program and sought public input to shape its 2013 report.

Approach: The Center for Community Health Education Research and Service and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health provide national leadership and advocacy for CE in the CTSA program. To systematically gather input to inform the IOM report, they used a modified Delphi Technique. An electronic survey asking open-ended questions about CE in CTSAs was sent to over 250 CTSA researchers and community leaders. Themes were sent out in 2 subsequent surveys to rank in order of significance, feasibility and impact.

Results: Participants identified why CE in research is important (eg, ensures relevance and applicability of research to the concerned community), how CE can be improved (eg, include specific expectations in CTSA funding criteria), benefits of CE (eg, research has improved relevance and efficacy), and gaps/barriers to CE (eg, poor funding for compensation of community partners). Recommended metrics for CE included community health outcomes, policy changes and integration of community partners on research teams.

Discussion: The results will inform a dialogue with the audience about strategies for strengthening CE in the CTSA program and NIH-funded research more broadly and identifying leverage points for change.