Education and Training
1. Semester-long two credit course, Clinical Research in Health Disparities and Community Engagement , is an integral part of the didactic training of MD and PhD ACTSI trainees and a requirement in the MSCR program. The course is developed and co-directed by the CERP leaders, Drs. Blumenthal and Kegler. A candidate textbook is Community-Based Health Research: Issues and Methods (Springer, New York, 2004), co-edited by the CERP lead director Dr. Daniel Blumenthal, MSM and Dr. Ralph DiClemente, Emory.
2. Community-Based Research Colloquium Sessions are for those ACTSI faculty and trainees who require an understanding, but lack sufficient time to attend the semester-long course. Lectures are provided by faculty from the Emory and MSM PRCs and the CFAR and are included in the Grand Rounds lectures and other CERP ACTSI educational outreach forums.
3. The ACTSI sponsors an annual educational conference featuring local and national experts in Community Engagement. Topics include principles of participatory research, understanding of community and cultural perspectives, development of practice-based networks, and the application of these principles to ACTSI specific programs and studies.
4. CERP faculty have developed a web-based Certification on Community Engagement Course ; Successful completion of web-based training is required for ACTSI investigators who wish to pursue community engagement for their protocols. The basic elements of the course include cultural competence, approaches to building partnerships with communities, and the ethics of community-based research. The ethics component was developed in collaboration with the ACTSI Ethics Program (described in Ethics, Regulatory Knowledge, and Support). Trainees and researchers who successfully complete the training will be issued a certificate; the program is shared throughout the CTSA network and with other research programs interested in a similar program of certification.
5. Mini-sabbaticals are available to junior faculty interested in community-based participatory research and funded through the Pilot and Collaborative Studies Program. They enable investigators the opportunity to work in the community and learn the unique features of this type of research over a one to two month period.