[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1017/cts.2020.23.].

A primary barrier to translation of clinical research discoveries into care delivery and population health is the lack of sustainable infrastructure bringing researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and communities together to reduce silos in knowledge and action. As National Institutes of Health's (NIH) mechanism to advance translational research, Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) awardees are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap. Delivering on this promise requires sustained collaboration and alignment between research institutions and public health and healthcare programs and services. We describe the collaboration of seven CTSA hubs with city, county, and state healthcare and public health organizations striving to realize this vision together. Partnership representatives convened monthly to identify key components, common and unique themes, and barriers in academic-public collaborations. All partnerships aligned the activities of the CTSA programs with the needs of the city/county/state partners, by sharing resources, responding to real-time policy questions and training needs, promoting best practices, and advancing community-engaged research, and dissemination and implementation science to narrow the knowledge-to-practice gap. Barriers included competing priorities, differing timelines, bureaucratic hurdles, and unstable funding. Academic-public health/health system partnerships represent a unique and underutilized model with potential to enhance community and population health.

INTRODUCTION: This article provides an overview of presentations and discussions from the inaugural Healthcare Delivery Science: Innovation and Partnerships for Health Equity Research (DESCIPHER) Symposium. METHODS: The symposium brought together esteemed experts from various disciplines to explore models for translating evidence-based interventions into practice. RESULTS: The symposium highlighted the importance of disruptive innovation in healthcare, the need for multi-stakeholder engagement, and the significance of family and community involvement in healthcare interventions. CONCLUSIONS: The article concluded with a call to action for advancing healthcare delivery science to achieve health equity.

Objective

To describe the early activities and lessons of the Share, Trust, Organize, Partner COVID-19 California Alliance (STOP COVID-19 CA), the California awardee of the NIH-funded multi-state Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) against COVID-19. The Alliance was established to ensure equity in Coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19) research, clinical practice, and public health for communities most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Study setting

The STOP COVID-19 CA Alliance network of 11 universities and affiliated partner community-based organizations (CBOs) across California.

Study design

Mixed methods evaluation consisting of an analysis of activity (August 2020 to December 2021) detailed in reports submitted by community-academic teams and a survey (August 2021) of academic investigators and affiliated community-based organization (CBO) partners.

Data collection

We summarized activities from the 11 community-academic teams' progress reports and described results from an online survey of academic investigators and CBO partners in the California Alliance.

Principal findings

A review of progress reports (n = 256) showed that teams fielded surveys to 11,000 Californians, conducted 133 focus groups, partnered with 29 vaccine/therapeutics clinical trials, and led more than 300 town halls and vaccine events that reached Californians from communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Survey responses from academic investigators and CBO partners emphasized the importance of learning from the successes and challenges of the California Alliance teams' COVID-19 initiatives. Both academic and CBO respondents highlighted the need for streamlined federal and institutional administrative policies, and fiscal practices to promote more effective and timely operations of teams in their efforts to address the numerous underlying health and social disparities that predispose their communities to higher rates of, and poor outcomes from, COVID-19.

Conclusions

STOP COVID-19 CA represents a new and potentially sustainable statewide community engagement model for addressing health disparities in multiethnic/multicultural and geographically dispersed communities.