Providing Research Teams with Resources to Center Communities and Build Trust

CEACR Objectives 

• Provide curated expert consultations tailored to the needs of each consultee by using a panel of community and academic leaders.
• Share community-centered practices that encourage research reciprocity within community-academic collaborations.
• Assist research teams in their work, increasing the trustworthiness of science among underserved communities.
• Advocate for and provide education on using community-partnered research to address health disparities and inequities.

What Does CEACR Offer? 

CEACR offers tailored consultations and resources on the following topics:

• Evolving community-competent outreach strategies and interventions.
• Bringing principles of trust and reciprocity into institutional and clinical spaces. 
• Enhancing the academic-community relationship.
• Humanizing the research process.
• Designing community-engaged research studies.
• Balancing research needs with community interests.
• Building an inclusive research workforce.
• Understanding barriers to inclusive participation in research.

CEACR Accomplishments

• Completed more than 50 tailored consultations ranging in focus from equitable partner compensation to the cultural appropriateness of public-facing study recruitment materials for a range of end users, including NIH Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER), NIH CEAL, ACTIV-6, ComPASS, and Home Test to Treat. 
• Onboarded more than 190 community engagement experts from academic, clinical, and community-based settings whose insight and expertise contribute to customized recommendations addressing consultee needs.
• Hosted a series of virtual speaker events that brought together experts from academic, clinical, and community-based settings to lead discussions focused on inclusive participation in research. The series of 12 webinars garnered more than 1,700 views from across the country.
• Developed a series of digital resources to communicate promising practices for community-engaged research. These resources are now available on the CEAL website.

CEACR Program Leads 

University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute (Pitt CTSI) 

For over 20 years, Pitt CTSI has worked directly with researchers in collaboration with regulatory agencies to navigate all necessary regulatory pathways at all stages of their research. Pitt CTSI-supported programs and resources extend to all six of the University of Pittsburgh’s schools of the health sciences—and through community engagement efforts—to the Pittsburgh region. Through the establishment of 12 core divisions, Pitt CTSI is building institutional infrastructure, including educational, programmatic, facility, and equipment resources to support a wide range of clinical and translational research across the lifespan and diverse populations. 

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) 

Established in 1997, CCPH is a nonprofit membership organization promoting health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions. CCPH views health broadly as physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being and emphasizes partnership approaches to health that focus on changing the conditions and environments in which people live, work, study, pray, and play. By mobilizing knowledge, providing training and technical assistance, conducting research, building coalitions, and advocating for supportive policies, CCPH helps to ensure that the reality of community engagement and partnership matches the rhetoric.

The Community Engagement Alliance Consultative Resource is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Explore CEACR resources.
Request CEACR consult services.