Supporting journal article writing for community-academic partnerships: Strategies from Northwestern's Center for Community Health (CCH)

Community-engaged research partnerships expressed a need for more support to collaboratively develop and submit manuscripts. Academic writing may be daunting for community collaborators who may be unfamiliar with the peer review process, lack protected time for writing, and see journal articles as lower priorities with little direct benefit in publishing beyond community dissemination. Northwestern University’s Center for Community Health piloted resources including lectures and workshops on collaborative writing, consultation with experienced journal reviewers (assistance with article conceptualization, advice on appropriate journals, editing), funding of small writing grants (provided protected time for writing), and writing retreats. Retreats were full-day sessions open to community and academic partners (including those from other area universities) that provided space and structure for writing, refreshments, and an on-site experienced researcher and journal reviewer available for individual consultation with attendees. Retreats also allowed community partners to receive guidance from journal reviewers, helping them understand the writing process. To date, eight articles co-authored by community and academic partners have been accepted for publication and more have been submitted and are undergoing review or are in press. While the original intent was to support submission and publication of journal articles, programs fostered a broad range of knowledge translation activities including dissemination products with more immediate community benefit (policy briefs, media coverage, etc).The retreats have also helped to stimulate follow-up research projects for partnerships who disseminated their initial project thereby creating a sustainable community engaged program of research. Presenters will discuss resources created, successes/challenges, evaluation findings, and next steps.