Community Engagement Core

Abstract: Heat stress is an issue of health fairness, driven by lack of resources and lack of access to cooling. The Community Engagement Core (CEC) will support the Center for Effective and Accessible Research-based Testing for Health (C-EARTH) through community partnership and community-rooted processes. The CEC will work hand in hand with the Implementation, Solutions, and Evaluation Core to develop and synthesize evaluation metrics to assess our community engagement practices and will apply a committee structure to use that data to iterate and improve our community engagement practices. The CEC will have three major aims: 1) provide training in community partnership that cultivates trust, multi-directional communication, clear role definition, and shared decision-making towards implementing HEW solutions that promote health; 2) support the delivery of community-driven HEW solutions that address health fairness in the community and are responsive to the needs described by the community; and 3) synthesize evaluation data of our community partnership work and use a committee-based model to conduct quality improvement cycles and inform policy-makers of findings. The CEC’s approach to integrating research and community engagement will enable effective feedback loops of inquiry, communication, collaboration, relationship building, and action. This approach will enable a cohesive, effective team structure, and promote capacity to inform policy-makers of outcomes of early community projects and research investigations.