Engagement Core

The Engagement Core within the Center for Transformative Community-driven Research to Prevent Obesity-related Cancer (the Center) believes that active engagement with stakeholders accelerates research participation and yields meaningful outcomes. We will focus on the science of community engagement in the Acres Homes community. We will prioritize building trust, understanding its paramount importance in community-academic relationships, especially given past instances where institutions might have taken advantage of communities. Our efforts in the Acres Homes community, exemplified by MD Anderson’s Be Well Communities model, have laid a foundation of trust. By investing in community-identified needs, forging partnerships with over 30 community organizations, and establishing shared health governance, we've created a unique opportunity for community-engaged scientific discovery. This trust, alongside the experience with the Be Well™ Acres Home initiative, sets a benchmark for trusting science and encouraging community engagement in public health research and practice. Building on these achievements, our aims are to: (1) Leverage the Be Well Acres Homes steering committee as the Center community advisory board (CAB) to foster research collaborations (2) Build capacity of Center investigators and Acres Homes community to conduct community-engaged research; (3) Develop and implement a workforce development program to provide experiential service-learning experiences for trainees and investigators; (4) Develop, test, and disseminate effective messages and novel methods to engage the Acres Homes community in cancer prevention research.