Abstract
Community engagement (CE) has come to the forefront of academic health centers' (AHCs) work because of two recent trends: the shift from a more traditional 'treatment of disease' model of health care to a population health paradigm (Gourevitch, 2014), and increased calls from funding agencies to include CE in research activities (Bartlett, Barnes, & McIver, 2014). As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 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 well-being of those people" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1997, p. 9). AHCs are increasingly called on to communicate details of their CE efforts to key stakeholders and to demonstrate their effectiveness. The population health paradigm values preventive care and widens the traditional purview of medicine to include social determinants of patients' health (Gourevitch, 2014). Thus, it has become increasingly important to join with communities in population health improvement efforts that address behavioral, social, and environmental determinants of health (Michener, et al., 2012; Aguilar-Gaxiola, et al., 2014; Blumenthal & Mayer, 1996). This CE can occur within multiple contexts in AHCs (Ahmed & Palermo, 2010; Kastor, 2011) including in education, clinical activities, research, health policy, and community service.
Highlights
While Academic health centers (AHCs) are under increased pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their community-engaged activities, there are multiple challenges to developing effective evaluation methods for CE in AHCs (CDC, 1997; Rubio, Blank, Dozier, Hites, Gilliam, Hunt, Rainwater, & Trochim, 2015)
Does the Institutional Community Engagement Self-Assessment (ICESA) Two-Phase Process Help AHCs Identify and Map Current Community Engagement Efforts?. The evidence for this question is found in the following sources: the completed University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Framework from all eight participating institutions; the answers to questions on the feedback survey; and the categorized open comments made by project team leaders
Project team leaders were asked about the utility of the URMC Framework and the ICESA two-phase process as a whole for identifying and mapping current community engagement efforts
Summary
While AHCs are under increased pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their community-engaged activities, there are multiple challenges to developing effective evaluation methods for CE in AHCs (CDC, 1997; Rubio, Blank, Dozier, Hites, Gilliam, Hunt, Rainwater, & Trochim, 2015). Phase 2 involves the completion of the ICESA developed by Community Campus-Partnerships for Health (CCPH) (Gelmon, Seifer, Kauper-Brown, & Mikkelsen, 2005) For this pilot, the URMC solicited participation from AHCs that were seeking, or that had already been awarded Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The URMC solicited participation from AHCs that were seeking, or that had already been awarded Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences These awards fund medical research institutions to speed the translation of research discovery into improved patient care and strongly encourage the inclusion of community-engaged activities toward this goal (Westfall, Ingram, Navarro, Magee, Neibauer, Zittleman, Fernald, & Pace, 2012).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
