Ready or not? Observations from a long-standing community engagement advisory board about investigator competencies for community-engaged research

Abstract

Preparing investigators to competently conduct community-engaged research is critical to achieving Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program goals. The purpose of this study is to describe the perspectives of members of a long-standing community engagement advisory board (CEAB) on investigators’ readiness to engage communities and indicators of investigator competence in community-engaged research, in order to suggest core competencies to guide the development of CTSA-sponsored educational programs. Two 90-minute focus groups were conducted with a subset of members of a CEAB (n=19) affiliated with the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. CEAB members identified a range of investigator skills and practices that demonstrate readiness to engage in community-engaged research. Eight competencies were identified that should be incorporated in providing education to enhance the readiness and competency of CTSA-affiliated researchers planning to engage communities in research. CEAB observations demonstrate the necessity of developing competency-based educational programs that prepare clinical and translational scientists at all levels for the important work of community-engaged research.

Engaging a community for youth mental health and wellness: Reflections and lessons learned

“…Reaching out to experts in the field of CBPR and consulting the literature was extremely beneficial in helping guide our approach and research methodology. However, as we progressed throughout the project, we recognised that more formal training earlier in the process would have been advantageous (Coffey et al 2017;Dresser 2017;Dubois et al 2011;Matthews et al 2018;Shea et al 2017).…”

“…When we initially came together, we had only a rudimentary understanding of community-based research methods. As we began reading the literature and planning for our needs assessment, we realised that we wished to align our approach more closely with the principles of CBPR (Israel et al 1998) and that some further education and familiarisation with both CBPR and CEnR would be helpful moving forward (Dubois et al 2011;Hardy et al 2016;Matthews et al 2018;Shea et al 2017). It was from this point that we made a conscious effort to become more familiar with the principles of CBPR to prepare the team for community research.…”

“…We reviewed background materials and articles, attended conferences and presentations, and held many discussions with community leaders and members. In addition, we consulted experienced researchers with expertise in the area of CBPR (Matthews et al 2018).…”

Priority Populations Toolkits: Enhancing researcher readiness to work with priority populations

“…Participants were selected who had significant experience conducting community-engaged research, living as members of priority populations, and/or advising researchers on conducting community-engaged research. Their advice to researchers that emerged from the focus group was categorized into knowledge, skills, and attitudes and published in a previous paper [14]. This framework was chosen because it operationalized existing principles of community engagement.…”

“…Power differentials represent another issue: often, researchers hold most of the decisionmaking power and get the benefits of the research, such as grant funding and the opportunity to publish. Community organizations and residents can therefore feel frustrated, leading to a reduced likelihood of participating in future research activities [14]. Highlighting these issues and providing guidance on how to resolve them is a crucial step in preparing investigators for research with priority populations.…”