What Is Community Engagement?
Here at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute's Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERI), Duke faculty and staff work with researchers and community members to develop relationships, improve research, and create better health outcomes in our communities, particularly for historically disadvantaged groups of people. This guide defines community engagement, offers principles and best practices, and answers frequently asked questions about community engagement.
Community engagement is “the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the wellbeing of those people. It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioral changes that will improve the health of the community and its members. It often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices” (CDC, 1997, p. 9).
For engagement to occur, it is necessary to go to the community and empower the community.
Why Is Community Engagement Important?
- Brings community-identified health priorities and interests to research (including health inequities as relevant)
- Increases participation in research among underrepresented populations
- Identifies treatment and prevention strategies that are uniquely effective for specific populations
- Translates research more quickly to improve health
- Increases both academic and community capacity
Principles of Community Engagement
(Developed by the NIH, CDC, ATSDR, and CTSA)
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Be clear about the purposes of engagement and the populations and/or communities you want to engage.
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Become knowledgeable about the community’s culture, economic conditions, social networks, political and power structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experiences with efforts by outside groups. Be aware of each other’s perceptions of past engagement activities.
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Build and maintain relationships and trust by working with individuals and/or community leaders.
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Remember and accept that collective self-determination is the responsibility and right of all people in a community. No external entity should assume it can bestow on a community the power to act in its own self-interest.
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Establish a partnership with the community to create change and improve health.
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Recognize and respect the diversity within the community.
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Identify and mobilize community assets and strengths through developing the community’s capacity and resources to make decisions and take actions.
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Recognize that individuals and institutions must be prepared to release control and be sufficiently flexible to meet changing needs.
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Foster community collaboration and strengthen long-term commitment among the partners.
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Demonstrating trustworthiness is fundamental to sustaining successful community engagement.
For more information, please consult:
Principles of Community Engagement
The Principles of Community Engagement (Third Edition) provides public health professionals, health care providers, researchers, and community-based leaders and organizations with both a science base and practical guidance for engaging partners in projects that may affect them. The principles of engagement can be used by people in a range of roles, from the program funder who needs to know how to support community engagement to the researchers or community leader who needs hands-on, practical information on how to mobilize members of a community to partner in research initiatives.
Continuum of Community Engagement
Levels of Patient and Researcher Engagement in Health Research
| Outreach | Consult | Involve | Collaborate | Shared Leadership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Some Community Involvement Communication flows from one to the other, to inform. Provides community with information. Entities coexist Outcomes: Optimally, establishes communication channels and channels for outreach. |
More community involvement Communication flows to the community and then back, answer seeking. Gets information or feedback from the community. Entities share information. Outcomes: Develops connections. |
Better community involvement Communication flows both ways, participatory form of communication. Involves more participation with community on issues. Entities cooperate with each other. Outcomes: visibility of partnership established with increased cooperation. |
Community involvement Communication flow is bidirectional. Forms partnerships with community on each aspect of project from development to solution. Entities form bidirectional communication channels. Outcomes: partnership building, trust building. |
Strong bidirectional relationship Final decision making is at community level. Entities have formed strong partnership structures. Outcomes: broader health outcomes affecting broader community. Strong bidirectional trust built. |
| Learn/Inform | Participate | Consult | Involve | Collaborate | Lead/Support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patient's Goal | To ask questions and learn about how to get more involved | To act as a subject or participant in a research study | To provide feedback and advise on specific research activities | To work directly with a research team throughout the project | To partner on equal footing with researchers in all aspects of research | To make final decisions and lead research activities |
| Researcher's Goal | To provide information, listen, and answer questions honestly | To act ethically and respectfully in the conduct of research | To seek your input on an ad hoc basis | To include you as standing members in an advisory capacity | To partner equally with you as team members | To follow your lead and support your decisions |
| How This Can Be Done | In an open atmosphere for sharing through orientation and information sessions, and media campaigns | Through quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods research | Through scientific cafes, focus groups, priority-setting activities, and as members of ad hoc working groups or expert panels | As members of standing working groups and advisory committees or panels | Patients as co-investigators and research partners, and as members of research steering committees | Through patient or community steering committees and patients as principal investigators |