CETAC Launches Communications Training Series to Support Research Dissemination

Dissemination is a crucial part of any community-engaged research project. The broad sharing of research findings allows communities to use and directly benefit from the learnings they helped to develop, strengthening trust and enabling impact. To support community-engaged research teams and others wanting to distribute research findings, the Community Engagement Technical Assistance Center (CETAC) — the coordinating center for the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) program — has just made public its series of trainings on promising practices in communications. The trainings share tips and tools for disseminating research findings through social media, earned media, and other channels, tailored to further the goals of CEAL programs.

True to CEAL’s community engagement roots, the initial topics for the training curriculum were developed with input from the CEAL programs. Through a needs assessment, teams identified current and future communications priorities and challenges. The results informed the development of an initial curriculum of training modules, accompanied by tip sheets, posted to an internal CEAL portal for research teams. To extend the reach of the series to those outside of CEAL doing similar community-engaged research, the trainings are now publicly available via YouTube and CEAL’s website.

Among other topics, the sessions share how CEAL teams have used earned media and social media, providing guidance for those just getting started or wanting to enhance existing communication efforts. They explore ways to develop clear, accessible messages and visuals that illustrate complex scientific ideas. Each training also provides links to free online resources to support further learning.

“CETAC’s wide range of services and resources allows for stronger, more impactful collaboration among academic institutions and communities. We hope the training sessions supercharge research teams’ abilities to get the word out about their findings, so learnings are shared through community venues as much as through peer-reviewed journals,” says Chanza Baytop, M.P.H., Dr.P.H., CETAC Project Director.

CETAC is now developing additional sessions to add to the collection. Next up: a training on developing effective fact sheets, toolkits, and other research dissemination materials. Other planned sessions on promising communications practices will be added over time.

As with the current trainings, future modules will help support the process of getting learnings back into the community, a key step in the community-engaged research cycle.

Visit CETAC’s Communications Trainings to Support Community-Engaged Research.