A Community Engagement Advisory Board as a strategy to improve research engagement and build institutional capacity for community-engaged research

Purpose: Community engagement is deemed as critical to the success of the CTSA program. In 2009, to improve research engagement and build capacity for community-engaged research across the translational spectrum, the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago created a Community Engagement Advisory Board (CEAB). Here, we report results of our ongoing evaluation efforts.

Methods: CEAB activities are evaluated using mixed methods. Annual CEAB evaluation surveys were completed from 2010 to 2016 (n=106 respondents). In 2014, two 90-minute focus groups were conducted with a subset of recent CEAB members (n=19).

Results: Survey data suggest respondents perceive their consultations to be helpful in improving the capacity of researchers (90%) and the quality of research projects (80%). Further, CEAB members perceive themselves to have personally benefitted from their involvement including obtaining new knowledge (84%), expansion of their networks (76%), and forming new community linkages (51%). Results of the qualitative data were consistent with survey data.

Conclusions: Our CEAB has improved research engagement and developed institutional capacity to conduct community-engaged research in several ways. Our findings can inform the establishment or enhancement of community engagement services for CTSA-affiliated researchers and community partners.