Research and Professional Development 1 - A How to Guide for Opening Our Hearts and Our Minds to Community-engaged Research

Community-engaged research (CER) is a dynamic, equity-based methodological approach that increases the likelihood of improving population behavioral health and well-being by centering the specific needs and experiences of communities across all stages of the research process. CER aims to ‘democratize’ research which, in turn, produces higher-quality science. Through CER, researchers and community members work collaboratively to accurately identify problems and potential solutions that are relevant to the needs of the community with unique lived experience insight that researchers often do not possess.

This 120-minute workshop offers attendees an opportunity to learn about CER practices and apply such knowledge to a potential CER project. Led by two doctoral students, two well-established CER investigators, and two community members with significant experience participating in CER, this workshop will be divided into three sections to facilitate learning and practice. Each section will include a short educational lecture and interactive breakout groups led by presenters. Breakout sessions are designed to help attendees apply skills to practice and facilitate additional learning through conversations with peers.

The workshop’s first section will focus on educating attendees on the history of CER, its benefits and challenges, and the unique skills required to effectively conduct CER with breakout groups brainstorming strategies for meaningful collaborations with community members. Subsequent sections will be anchored in potential CER projects identified by participants. The second section’s lecture will engage attendees in discussion about various methods utilized in CER as well as how they relate to different proposed research questions. The corresponding breakout group discussion will focus on helping attendees determine the types of research methods (e.g., qualitative, quantitative) that may best help them achieve intervention development goals alongside community members. The third and final section of the workshop will offer guidance on how to develop, maintain, and sustain community-academic partnerships as well as strategies to navigate potential ethical problems and power imbalances that may arise in practice.