The problem

Charles R. Drew University (CDU) and community partners wanted to create a structure to transcend traditional community-academic partnerships. They wanted community leaders integrated into CDU's research goals and education of medical professionals.

Purpose of article

To explain the establishment of the Community Faculty Program, a new model of community-academic partnership that integrates community and academic knowledge.

Key points

Using CBPR principles, CDU and community partners re-conceptualized the faculty appointment process and established the Division of Community Engagement (DCE). CDU initially offered academic appointments to nine community leaders. Community Faculty contributes to CDU's governance, education, research, and publication goals. This model engaged communities in translational research and transformed the education of future healthcare professionals.

Conclusion

The Community Faculty Program is a new vision of partnership. Using a CBPR approach with committed partners, a Community Faculty Program can be created that embodies the values of both the community and the academy.

Background

This study used Community Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) to address low participation of racial and ethnic minorities in medical research and the lack of trust between underrepresented communities and researchers.

Methods

Using a community and academic partnership in July 2012, residents of a South Los Angeles neighborhood were exposed to research recruitment strategies: referral by word-of-mouth, community agencies, direct marketing, and extant study participants.

Results

Among 258 community members exposed to recruitment strategies, 79.8% completed the study. Exposed individuals identified their most important method for learning about the study as referral by study participants (39.8%), community agencies (30.6%), word-of-mouth (17.5%), or direct marketing promotion (12.1%). Study completion rates varied by recruitment method: referral by community agencies (88.7%), referral by participants (80.4%), direct marketing promotion (86.2%), word of mouth (64.3%).

Conclusions

Although African American and Latino communities are often described as difficult to engage in research, we found high levels of research participation and completion when recruitment strategies emerged from the community itself. This suggests recruitment strategies based on CPPR principles represent an important opportunity for addressing health disparities and our high rates of research completion should provide optimism and a road map for next steps.