Community Engagement Core

The Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) aims to improve the lives of citizens of Detroit through community-responsive research that deflects the adverse health effects of combined exposures to chemical and non-chemical stressors in a complex urban environment. To address the mission and objectives of CURES, the Community Engagement Core (CEC) has established several innovative and community-responsive practices. The CEC team is a diverse group and includes two leaders of the CURES Community Advisory Board (CAB) who are integrated into all CEC activities and meetings and more broadly across CURES as well. The CEC will convene a large, 23-member, highly engaged CAB at meetings three times per year that will be co-facilitated with the CAB Co-Chairs. The CEC and CAB will co-develop events that will allow us to directly reach hundreds of Detroit residents each year through a grassroots outreach strategy that provides information and resources on timely and locally relevant environmental health topics. The CEC will also develop innovative training programs, including tailored skill building to enhance science communication skills with public audiences. During the next four years, the CEC’s core objective will be to foster community resilience through the integration of community members and their needs with CURES priorities and activities. To address the CURES CEC’s core objective, the CEC will pursue three Specific Aims.