Community Outreach and Engagement Core

Given the overwhelming demand for consultation about community outreach and engagement, CAIANDTR has a dedicated Community Outreach and Engagement Core, representing our commitment to turning research into action. Although much prior work has focused on knowledge exchange in health provider systems, we argue that effective knowledge exchange must engage communities as well as the scientific disciplines, which range from basic science through behavioral science to health policy.

The Community Outreach and Engagement Core (COEC) builds upon CAIANDTR’s extensive collaborative networks. Through the COEC, CAIANDTR collaborates with an array of tribal and institutional partnersto identify and support our Research Base. COEC also works closely with our 6 Satellite Centers to extend CAIANDTR’s impact to the local stakeholder groups critical to growing and sustaining a successful translation research agenda specific to the prevention and treatment of diabetes among American Indian and Alaska Native peoples (AI/ANs). The Satellite Centers and the COEC develop and implement dissemination plans for reaching out to, engaging, and ensuring the participation of key scientific and community stakeholders in systematic conversations about diabetes translation research among AI/ANs and facilitate the local dissemination of research, education, and treatment advances as well as opportunities for participation.

Additionally, the COEC assists with two major initiatives carried out by each Satellite Center: hosting a local symposium and administering a needs assessment.

COEC activities

1. Collaborate with Satellite Centers on selecting themes for their local symposia;
2. Coordinate a brief, uniform needs assessment, which is administered at the close of the symposium or to participants in other local gatherings focused on a similar diabetes-related subject;
3. Assist in summarizing and disseminating the symposia proceedings;
4. Encourage community participation in the planned activities;
5. Foster new lines of inquiry related to the findings; and
6. Consider how to co-create and adapt diabetes interventions and align them with priority needs.