Community-engaged research is done in partnership with patients, health service systems, community-based-organizations, and other stakeholder groups.  The nature of the partnership is based on a number of factors, such as research objectives. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is one approach to community-engaged research. CBPR includes all partners equitably in the research project so that each partner’s unique strengths and expertise informs the research from conception to dissemination.

Why Community-Engaged Research?

Through partnerships with schools, faith communities, community-based-organizations, patients, healthcare providers, and other stakeholder groups, community-engaged researchers have the potential to:

• Incorporate lived-experience insights into questions, hypotheses, or data interpretation.
• Design research for easy translation to real-world health settings and situations.
• Improve cultural- and language-appropriate communication and interventions.
• Encourage participant recruitment, enrollment, and retention by community interactions.
• Mitigate risk to the specific community by developing appropriate protections.
• Build greater trust between academic researchers and communities, which may lead to additional collaborations.
• Reach under-represented and under-served populations.