UCLA

Community engagement is recommended to ensure the public health impact of NIH-funded science. To understand the prevalence of community-engaged research and faculty interest in and needs around this, from 2012 to 2013, an online survey (n = 3,022) was sent to UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute faculty. Among respondents, 45% reported community-engaged project participation in the last year and 64% an interest in learning about community-engaged research. Over 50% indicated career development and pilot grants would increase participation in community-engaged research. A greater percentage of pretenure than tenured faculty (pretenure 54.9%, tenured 42.2%, p = 0008) noted faculty promotion criteria incentivizing community-engaged research would increase participation. In adjusted analyses, African American (OR 4.06, CI 1.68-9.82, p = 0.002) and Latino (OR 1.91, CI 1.10-3.33, p = 0.022) faculty had higher odds of prior participation in community-engaged projects than Whites. Female faculty had greater odds of interest (OR 1.40, CI 1.02-1.93, p = 0.038) in learning about community-engaged research than males. African American (OR 4.31, CI 1.42-13.08, p = 0.010) and Asian/Pacific Islander (OR 2.24, CI 1.52-3.28, p < 0.001) faculty had greater interest in learning about community-engaged research than Whites. To build community-engaged faculty research capacity, CTSAs' may need to focus resources on female and minority faculty development.