Community Engagement Core

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE
The mission of the Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases is to develop a regional research center focused on the prevention, treatment, and management of cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, among populations who suffer disproportionately from these conditions in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Center is unified thematically through the application of the precision public health approach across the care continuum to reduce the burden of cardiometabolic disease. Precision public health, best viewed as “providing the right intervention to the right population at the right time”, acknowledges the importance of context, individual beliefs and preferences to reduce persistent chronic disease and improve health. This approach also highlights the need for broad involvement of non-academic partners who can facilitate the conduct and translation of contextually relevant research into community and systems-level interventions. As such, the Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the Center serves as the central organizing unit to build authentic, productive, and sustaining academic-community partnerships to promote health outcomes in the Deep South region. The CEC includes expertise in population health, community-engaged research, health promotion, health policy, bioethics, communications, and research dissemination. The CEC will be led by Dr. Caroline Compretta (University of Mississippi Medical Center) who will be responsible for overall programmatic direction and operations of the CEC. She will be supported by additional faculty responsible for various CEC activities, including Dr. Stephanie Broyles (Pennington Biomedical Research Center) and Drs. Vivian Carter and Stephen Sodeke (Tuskegee University). Core leadership will work closely with, and rely on input from, a community coalition comprised of various nonacademic partner organizations and a separate community advisory board of community members from across AL, MS, and LA. The CEC will provide integral support for the Center’s mission to improve health outcomes and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic disease in the Deep South by: 1) expanding and maintaining bi-directional academic-community regional partnerships; 2) preparing an interdisciplinary biomedical research workforce for the conduct of community-engaged research; 3) facilitating novel lines of translational research derived from bi-directional communication between investigators and community members; and 4) equipping community members with health promotion materials, actionable strategies and new resources to improve health and reduce disease burden in the region.

Grant Number: 5P50MD017338-05
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: MONICA BASKIN