More than 34 community and academic partners from 7 CCTS partner network institutions, 9 community organizations, and 1 industry partner gathered in Mobile on Sept. 23 to discuss initiatives that will strengthen coordination of efforts aimed at improving the health of the region’s most vulnerable populations. The University of South Alabama (USA) hosted the meeting.
Attendees were greeted by Dr. John Marymount, Dean of USA’s College of Medicine and vice President of Medical Affairs, and and CCTS USA Site Lead Dr. Mark Gillespie. CCTS USA Site Co-Lead Dr. Kimberly Littlefield the driving forces behind mapping community – academic partnership activities and expertise across the tri-state region (AL, LA, MS) and noted the benefits of using the PURE platform to do so.
UAB School of Public Health Dean and CCTS Director of Community Engagement Dr. Max Michael offered a snapshot of the community-academic partnership database being developed with Elsevier’s PURE tool. The goal is to capture profiles of community-academic partnerships as well as information about community-based projects and activities as a means to (1) showcase the drivers of research, service, and educational projects focused on alleviating health disparities in the region and (2) facilitate community engagement within and outside of the CCTS partner network. A working lunch provided attendees with a chance to network and ask questions about the PURE initiative.
Vadim Sobolev, a customer consultant in Research Intelligence for Elsevier, was on hand to walk attendees through PURE via slides as well as the beta website. The demonstration was well-received, with attendees committing to completing their fillable PDFs in time to be incorporated into PURE before the holidays.
In the afternoon, the focus turned to next steps, specifically how the consortium might come together to respond to an NIH R13 conference funding opportunity. Dr. Shauntice Allen, Director of CCTS’s One Great Community, led discussion on timelines for grant development and potential themes that may seed development of a full proposal.
Dr. Littlefield closed the meeting with reminders of upcoming community engagement meetings, including a USA workshop on community-based participatory research best practices in January 2017, the Tuskegee Bioethics workshop to be held in early 2017, and the 3rd Annual Community Engagement Institute coming up on Oct. 14th.
In commenting on the event, Dr. Michael noted, “The Community Engagement Consortium became a reality with the meeting in Mobile. Everyone is excited about working together on the database of programs, partnerships, and collaborations through Elsevier’s PURE and exploring other ways to develop new opportunities like a conference series.” A follow-up consortium meeting is planned for January 2017.