Partnering With Communities to Improve Health

Building Trust. Increasing Awareness and Education. Promoting Inclusion. 

NIH CEAL brings together community leaders, local health organizations, clinicians, and other community champions. This collaboration ensures that health research addresses the most critical issues in the community and generates culturally appropriate solutions. NIH CEAL also ensures solutions can be developed to benefit the largest number of people and sustained going forward so that communities experience the tangible benefits of research discoveries.

What Is Community-Engaged Research? 

Community-engaged research is designed to involve the community in the research process, especially those members most impacted by the health issues being addressed and those who have historically been left out of the research process. In community-engaged research, research teams and communities work as equal partners to design and carry out studies, analyze data, and share and implement study findings. Community-engaged research effectively focuses on health care disparities and provides trustworthy, science-based information essential for all communities to thrive.

NIH CEAL Programs

This NIH-wide community engagement effort, co-led by the leaders and experts of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), focuses on addressing health disparities and the social determinants of health that impede health equity in specific communities. Through its teams of community and academic partners, NIH CEAL currently supports community-engaged research through the following programs:

The Alliance for Community Engagement – Climate and Health (ACE-CH) is a community-engaged alliance that promotes community-driven, sustainable strategies addressing the impact of climate on populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of health and health disparities. ACE-CH evaluates community knowledge of the health impacts of climate stressors and builds partnerships with multiple stakeholders to encourage and build resiliency. 

The American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AI/AN-NHPI) Enrichment Initiative encourages community-driven, scientifically rigorous, intervention-based research. This research will address disparities in social and structural determinants of health impacting the prevention and management of chronic diseases and emerging public health threats in these populations. The Enrichment Initiative’s projects work to create sustainable research infrastructures that build healthy and resilient communities. 

The Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Regional Teams address issues related to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities. The program collaborates with nearly 1,200 organizations and community partners, including health care providers, hospital systems, academic and research organizations, schools, faith-based groups, nonprofits, and other community-based organizations. 

The Community Engagement Alliance Consultative Resource (CEACR) supports NIH-funded research teams seeking to apply principles of community engagement to center communities through outreach and address diversifying research participation, with a specific emphasis on communities traditionally underrepresented in research. CEACR uses expertise in community engagement, along with resources from within CEAL, to provide tailored consultations through academic and community collaborations with the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health. 

The Health Knowledge Monitoring and Response System (HKMRS) Pilot is a two-year effort that seeks to test the feasibility of building upon a network of community monitoring, prevalence assessment, and response to disrupt the spread of inaccurate health information and deliver timely, relevant, and accurate health information at the local and national levels. 

The Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone Community Implementation Program (IMPROVE-CIP) supports community-engaged implementation research to address factors that contribute to maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, such as mental health, substance use, psychosocial factors, and social and structural determinants of health.

The Maternal Health Community Implementation Program (MH-CIP) supports community-engaged implementation research, working with affected communities to improve heart, lung, blood, and sleep health before, during, and after delivery. MH-CIP aligns with CEAL’s mission by emphasizing community engagement in all aspects of research promoting health equity.

The Network for Community-Engaged Primary Care Research (NCPCR) uses community-engaged research in primary care settings to promote the inclusion of the most impacted underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in biomedical research, including clinical studies and trials and supports research studying awareness, education, and health information needs for biomedical research.