Community Engagement Strategies Research Articles

Who is your community? Co-designing a community engagement strategy for an emerging data platform.

ObjectivesTo co-design with older Australian consumers and stakeholders a strategy for engaging the wider community with an emerging data platform, involving linked routinely collected electronic health data for research. To develop strategies to address consumer concerns of data use, privacy and safety.
 ApproachThe National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) Data Platform aims to make better use of existing health data to lead transformative research. Facilitated workshops were conducted with consumer representatives in March 2022. Use case scenarios were created following interviews with NCHA researchers; these were used to facilitate discussion around benefits and challenges of health data related research. Predetermined questions were given to two participant groups to develop strategies to engage the broader community with the Data Platform; ideas were presented to the whole group to prompt further discussion. Workshops were audio-recorded; transcripts are being analysed using thematic data analysis.
 ResultsTwo workshops were conducted (workshop 1=7 participants; workshop 2=9 participants). Participants were >65 years, of mixed gender (8 women; 8 men), used the same health service, and resided in the Frankston/Mornington Peninsula region of Victoria, Australia. Preliminary findings suggest an essential element to the design of an effective community engagement strategy with a data platform is the understanding of who the target community is (e.g. age, culture, and health/digital literacy). Conveyed information needs to be simple, clear and devoid of academic and/or technical jargon. Community engagement strategies should respect consumers’ genuine fear of who can access their data and concerns around whether their data is identifiable. Overall, participants expressed optimism in the NCHA Data Platform and its ability to directly impact their well-being.
 ConclusionPreliminary findings from this study have identified effective strategies to engage the older community with an electronic health data platform, an often complex and technical concept. The co-design of a consumer engagement strategy allows the NCHA to broaden its network and ensure research outputs meet the needs of the older community.

Barriers and facilitators of and strategies for successful community engagement in infectious disease clinical trials in low- and middle-income countries

Barriers and facilitators of and strategies for successful community engagement in infectious disease clinical trials in low- and middle-income countries

A novel resident outreach program improves street tree planting outcomes in Los Angeles

Urban tree planting is a key climate change resilience strategy for many municipalities, but remains challenged by establishment mortality in semi-arid regions. Street trees offer shade benefits to adjacent structures and pavement, and enable public works departments to implement heat island reduction interventions to exposed communities. But in Los Angeles, resident approval and written agreement to water for 3–5 years is required to plant street trees in residential public rights of way. Historically, 10% of residents contacted agreed to adopt street trees, and 50% of trees planted survived. Community engagement strategies, shown to improve tree acceptance rates and survival elsewhere, had not been tested here. This mixed-methods evaluation of a street tree planting and public education project in 2018 evaluated a novel youth outreach strategy to engage residents. Regular watering was provided post-transplant for varying periods. Residents were surveyed and project partners were interviewed; tree health was assessed visually. Resident feedback on the engagement strategy was strongly positive. Residents surveyed demonstrated measured learning outcomes, and satisfaction with education was associated with improved tree survival. Project partners identified numerous co-benefits, primarily among youth educators, and revealed an increased capacity for future urban greening work. Univariate logistic regression identified tree species, weeks of watering, and drought exposure as predictors of tree health (p < .05), but in a multivariate model, only certain tree species were significant (p < .05). This evaluation identifies multiple strategies to inform future tree planting projects, increase street tree acceptance and establishment survival, and support community co-benefits.

Rethinking the Corporate Community Engagement Continuum

There is more than one-way business can engage with their local communities. Previous research has organised this diversity of interests, responses and impacts using both dichotomous and continuous typologies that mainly focus on corporate behaviours and actions. Although these typologies present a clear view about what firms have to do, little thought is given to understanding how firms engage with their social responsibilities and stakeholders in a more abstract level. It is clear that corporate community engagement involves a visible side of actions and techniques, but it is less clear which are the underlying assumptions firms implicitly or explicitly consider to develop these engagement methods. The purpose of this paper is to rethink the continuum of corporate community engagement in relation to the organisational contexts. In particular, by investigating the distinct but interrelated approaches to social responsibilities and stakeholder engagement firms might prioritise in transactional, transitional and transformational strategies. Acknowledging these approaches is relevant because they not only inform the community engagement strategy but the whole business strategy.

Community engagement to improve access to healthcare: a comparative case study to advance implementation science for transgender health equity

BackgroundRecent calls to action have been made for Implementation Science to attend to health inequities at the intersections of race, gender, and social injustice in the United States. Transgender people, particularly Black and Latina transgender women, experience a range of health inequities and social injustices. In this study, we compared two processes of transgender community engagement in Los Angeles and in Chicago as an implementation strategy to address inequitable access to care; we adapted and extended the Exploration Planning Implementation and Sustainment (EPIS) framework for transgender health equity.MethodsA comparative case method and the EPIS framework were used to examine parallel implementation strategies of transgender community engagement to expand access to care. To foster conceptual development and adaptation of EPIS for trans health equity, the comparative case method required detailed description, exploration, and analyses of the community-engagement processes that led to different interventions to expand access. In both cities, the unit of analysis was a steering committee made up of local transgender and cisgender stakeholders.ResultsBoth steering committees initiated their exploration processes with World Café-style, transgender community-engaged events in order to assess community needs and structural barriers to healthcare. The steering committees curated activities that amplified the voices of transgender community members among stakeholders, encouraging more effective and collaborative ways to advance transgender health equity. Based on analysis and findings from the Los Angeles town hall, the steering committee worked with a local medical school, extending the transgender medicine curriculum, and incorporating elements of transgender community-engagement. The Chicago steering committee determined from their findings that the most impactful intervention on structural racism and barriers to healthcare access would be to design and pilot an employment program for Black and Latina transgender women.ConclusionIn Los Angeles and Chicago, transgender community engagement guided implementation processes and led to critical insights regarding specific, local barriers to healthcare. The steering committee itself represented an important vehicle for individual-, organizational-, and community-level relationship and capacity building. This comparative case study highlights key adaptations of EPIS toward the formation of an implementation science framework for transgender health equity.

Mapping Tensions: Positioning Community Engagement Challenges as Generative Space

This research offers a contextual snapshot—via the applied tensional analysis (ATA) method—of common barriers that educators face when taking on community engagement work. A six-person research team interviewed 22 faculty and staff actively pursuing community partnerships at three different institutions of higher education in a single region. Participants’ responses were coded to identify common barriers to engagement and the strategies that participants used to overcome those barriers. We draw on ATA (Mease, 2019) as a methodological approach that acknowledges tensions as critical entry points for understanding both the experiences of individual actors and the malleable structures from which those tensions emerge. This article does not attempt to offer one-size-fits-all strategies for community engagement. Instead, it offers ATA as a means for contextualizing specific tensions and strategies within local community engagement settings and for reframing those tensions as generative spaces for community engagement work.

Reimagining Community Engagement Sustainability: Insights for the Postpandemic World

Scholars in the community engagement field have long discussed measures to sustain community engagement on campus. When COVID-19 emerged, however, university operations, including community-engaged teaching and research, had to pivot. The conversation was no longer about sustaining community engagement but about enduring the pandemic for the sake of students, faculty, and community. In order to inform a more durable community engagement strategy for the postpandemic world, we apply a sensemaking approach for the purpose of organizational learning. We collected quantitative data about 40 planned courses and surveyed 22 community-engaged faculty from April to August 2020 (spring–summer academic quarters). In the same period, we gathered qualitative data from 41 respondents comprising 28 faculty and 13 community partners. The quantitative analysis suggested that, overall, faculty maintained a positive outlook regarding the strategies they used to address the needs of students and community partners and regarding their own expectations and innovations. The qualitative data revealed seven themes—loss and challenge, future uncertainty, action strategies, communication strategies, technology, collaborative resilience, and student considerations—that can help us consider community engagement through the lenses of experience, adaptation, and sustainability. The insights provided here offer ways to improve durability within sustainable community engagement practices.

Communication Factors Influencing Behavioral Intention of Prevention and Community Engagement during COVID-19 in the United States

This study examined how internal (uncertainty, susceptibility, severity, anxiety, and fear) and external motivators (descriptive norms, parasocial interaction, and identification) account for information seeking, message reception, and behavioral intention of COVID-19 prevention and community engagement. A total of 500 US adults’ responses were collected and analyzed. Results found that both internal and external motivators positively predicted COVID-19 information seeking. External motivators were significantly related to message reception, whereas internal motivators were not. The results imply that external motivators and self-efficacy interacting with internal motivators can be catalysts for the behavioral intention of COVID-19 prevention and community engagement. Study results suggest that emphasizing social influence and public figures’ messages in health campaigns may be effective communication strategies for COVID-19 prevention and community engagement.

Adapting Community Educational Programs During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing the Feasibility and Efficacy of a Lung Cancer Screening Educational Intervention by Mode of Delivery.

Few eligible patients receive lung cancer screening. We developed the Lung AIR (awareness, information, and resources) intervention to increase community education regarding lung cancer screening. The intervention was designed as an in-person group intervention; however, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated adapting the mode of delivery. In this study we examined intervention feasibility and efficacy overall and by mode of delivery (in-person group vs. one-on-one phone) to understand the impact of adapting community outreach and engagement strategies. Feasibility was examined through participant demographics. Efficacy was measured through pre/post knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about lung cancer screening, and intention to complete screening. We reached N = 292 participants. Forty percent had a household income below $35,000, 58% had a high school degree or less, 40% were Hispanic, 57% were Black, and 84% reported current or past smoking. One-on-one phone sessions reached participants who were older, had lower incomes, more current smoking, smoked for more years, more cigarettes per day, lower pre-intervention lung cancer screening knowledge, and higher pre-intervention fear and worry. Overall pre/post test scores show significant increases in knowledge, salience, and coherence, and reduced fear and worry. Participants in the one-on-one phone sessions had significantly higher increases in salience and coherence and intention to complete screening compared to participants in the in-person group sessions. The Lung AIR intervention is a feasible and effective community-based educational intervention for lung cancer screening. Findings point to differences in reach and efficacy of the community-based intervention by mode of delivery.

Perception of Global Participants of ITEC Nations on Country's Preparedness and Response to COVID-19 Pandemic.

BackgroundThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed the public health preparedness and response system across the world. The current study was conducted to gauge the perception of public health professionals of Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) countries regarding the preparedness and responses of their countries in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodologyThree capacity-building programs, namely “Managing COVID-19 Pandemic–Experience and Best practices of India” were conducted by PGIMER, Chandigarh, for public health professionals from ITEC countries from April to May 2021 in which 97 participants from 13 countries have participated. The tools used in the study were adapted from WHO's COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response (SPRP), Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, interim guidelines for Critical preparedness, readiness and response actions for COVID-19, and a strategic framework for emergency preparedness, and finalized using Delphi technique. The overall preparedness of managing COVID-19 was rated using five-point Likert scale, whereas the overall score for the country in combating the COVID-19 pandemic was assessed using 10 point scale.ResultsWe found that the perception of public health professionals to government response regarding COVID-19 for fostering improvement on COVID-19 situation was “moderate” with respect to transmission and surveillance mechanism, uniform reporting mechanism, and availability of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers. However, the participants rated government response as “poor” in the availability of multisectoral national operational plan, human resource capacity, availability of trained rapid response team (RRT), preparedness in prevention and clinical management, training of healthcare workers, communication and community engagement strategies, facilities to test samples of patients, and transparent governance and administration.ConclusionA poor level of preparedness of countries in diverse domains of managing the COVID-19 pandemic was observed. As the global threat of COVID-19 is still looming, great efforts on building a robust preparedness and response system for COVID-19 and similar pandemics are urgently required.

Virtual recruitment and participant engagement for substance use research during a pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic resulted in cataclysmic changes to the research enterprise, causing a forced shutdown or rapid pivot to virtual methods. Adapting studies to the virtual environment also impacted recruitment and retention strategies. This review elucidated challenges and offered pragmatic recommendations, drawing on published literature and our prior work, to assist researchers in re-evaluating and amending best-practice techniques to bolster inclusive recruitment and study engagement of people using substances, particularly for virtual interviews or focus groups. Ameliorating recruitment strategies and research protocols to better fit virtual methods of recruitment and study administration required careful consideration of ethical and logistical implications. Many procedures to increase enrollment of underrepresented populations, such as building mutually beneficial and respectful community partnerships, recruiting via social media, or providing ambulatory research centers, existed prior to this specific pandemic. However, unprecedented disruptions in resources needed to participate in virtual interviews or focus groups, privacy concerns, and possible deteriorating trust in research necessitated continued adaptation and expansion of these strategies. Building upon prepandemic, community-engaged strategies may continue to facilitate diverse recruitment efforts and advance science productivity in the substance use and addiction field during the pandemic and thereafter.

Risk communication and community engagement – unlocking the key to South Africa’s response to SARS-CoV-2

Background. COVID-19 has changed the way that governments communicate and engage with citizens. In emergencies, effective communication must be immediate, grounded in science, transparent, easy to understand and in language-appropriate messaging delivered through multiple and varied platforms. For the South African (SA) COVID-19 response, the intent was to design an agile, locally relevant Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) strategy as the pandemic was unfolding and to constantly evaluate its implementation. Early involvement of communities in the formulation and direction of a risk communication plan is essential to its success. Objective. To outline the significance of the RCCE’s robust communication strategy during the COVID-19 response and the lessons learnt in executing the strategy. Methods. This is a qualitative review of documents and reports generated and utilised by the RCCE Technical Working Group (TWG) and reflects the lessons learnt from discussions and multiple engagements at district, provincial and national levels. The review incorporates lessons learnt from international practice, resource documents from the World Health Organization (WHO), RCCE readiness and response to coronavirus disease, feedback from the Behavioural Science Ministerial Advisory Committee, input from the call centre, website and various established social media platforms. Results. Communication and building trust with multiple stakeholders begin before an outbreak and is a prerequisite to facilitate the timeous flow of information, particularly in the context of a rapidly evolving outbreak of a new disease, where the scientific community does not immediately have all the answers. Initial COVID-19 messages were therefore filled with challenges that ranged from the lack of scientific and epidemiological information to rumours, conspiracy theories and misinformation. The findings validate that empowering communities to act, strengthening public trust and community participation using multiple channels as well as timely responses to rumours and misinformation are important drivers of COVID-19 communication efforts in SA. Communication efforts must be accelerated to translate science into locally relevant languages and the impact of interventions must be measured to appropriately direct limited resources. Conclusion. The risk communication strategy incorporated several key lessons that could be used to improve communication and inform future emergency response communication that is immediate, science-based, transparent, inclusive and encourages community participation.

Perception of Students on Antibiotic Resistance and Prevention: An Online, Community-Based Case Study from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Aims: The study aimed to assess perception of the students about antibiotic consumption and the rise of antibiotic resistance with the view to developing an effective community engagement strategy for antimicrobial stewardship.&#x0D; Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out from July 2020 to November 2020. The students from Dhaka City, Bangladesh were approached through social media to complete an online questionnaire containing self-identification data, knowledge about antibiotics, attitudes toward antibiotics, and antibiotic consumption. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.&#x0D; Results: Out of the 472 survey participants, 24.6% of participants identified antibiotic side effects as the worst outcome, while 74.2% were unaware of the antibiotics’ long-term impact on global health. Participants believe antimicrobial stewardship and legal disciplinary action against indiscriminate use of antibiotics are the best strategies for countering the spread of antimicrobial resistance.&#x0D; Conclusions: This study has identified knowledge gaps and misconceptions about antibiotic resistance and prevention. In these situations, academics must play a role in training students about the dangers of antibiotic misuse, gathering public opinion in support of effective policy making, and enforcing guidelines and regulations across the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries to prevent the spread of superbugs.

Citizen Engagement in EU Collective Action Energy Projects

Transitioning to a low-carbon economy requires profound changes in the energy system, including digitisation and decentralisation. Collective action energy projects are a promising means of supporting this transformation since they redistribute control of energy resources to the citizens and foster sustainable energy behaviours, as well as potentially enhancing energy justice and democracy. The EU has funded a number of collective action energy R&amp;I projects which combine the use of new technologies and community engagement. We identify 28 such projects and investigate the types of community engagement strategies trialed and the challenges they face. We find that engagement strategies comprise a mixture of shorter term participation and longer term behaviour change strategies. There is a tendency towards behaviour change strategies based on feedback and/or rewards, while other promising strategies like targeting group norms are less common. Overall, projects opt for medium-level participation, while co-creative or more empowering approaches are less common. A lack of consistency in approach and a lack of reported data on social impacts of the projects makes it difficult to determine how effective the engagement strategies (and hence projects themselves) have been. We provide some recommendations for designing and monitoring similar research projects going forward.

Teaching Note—Supporting Homebound Older Adults and Caregivers Through Integrative Service Learning

ABSTRACT The Supporting Older Adults & Caregivers: Integrative Service Learning (SOCIAL) partnership trains undergraduate social work students to provide practical home-based support for older adults with chronic illness and their family caregivers, serving as a pipeline for future leaders in older adult care. More than 2 million older adults are homebound, and 5 million need help leaving their homes. Family members often assume daily caregiving tasks to assist their loved ones, navigate health care systems, and provide much needed emotional support. In this teaching note, we provide an example of an integrative service learning model which can serve older adults and caregivers while offering valuable pedagogical experiences to baccalaureate students, along with strategies for curriculum building, community engagement, research and evaluation, and program sustainability.

Research priorities to reduce the impact of COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to the functioning of societies and their health systems. Prior to the pandemic, health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) were particularly stretched and vulnerable. The International Society of Global Health (ISoGH) sought to systematically identify priorities for health research that would have the potential to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs.MethodsThe Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method was used to identify COVID-19-related research priorities. All ISoGH members were invited to participate. Seventy-nine experts in clinical, translational, and population research contributed 192 research questions for consideration. Fifty-two experts then scored those questions based on five pre-defined criteria that were selected for this exercise: 1) feasibility and answerability; 2) potential for burden reduction; 3) potential for a paradigm shift; 4) potential for translation and implementation; and 5) impact on equity.ResultsAmong the top 10 research priorities, research questions related to vaccination were prominent: health care system access barriers to equitable uptake of COVID-19 vaccination (ranked 1st), determinants of vaccine hesitancy (4th), development and evaluation of effective interventions to decrease vaccine hesitancy (5th), and vaccination impacts on vulnerable population/s (6th). Health care delivery questions also ranked highly, including: effective strategies to manage COVID-19 globally and in LMICs (2nd) and integrating health care for COVID-19 with other essential health services in LMICs (3rd). Additionally, the assessment of COVID-19 patients’ needs in rural areas of LMICs was ranked 7th, and studying the leading socioeconomic determinants and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs using multi-faceted approaches was ranked 8th. The remaining questions in the top 10 were: clarifying paediatric case-fatality rates (CFR) in LMICs and identifying effective strategies for community engagement against COVID-19 in different LMIC contexts.InterpretationHealth policy and systems research to inform COVID-19 vaccine uptake and equitable access to care are urgently needed, especially for rural, vulnerable, and/or marginalised populations. This research should occur in parallel with studies that will identify approaches to minimise vaccine hesitancy and effectively integrate care for COVID-19 with other essential health services in LMICs. ISoGH calls on the funders of health research in LMICs to consider the urgency and priority of this research during the COVID-19 pandemic and support studies that could make a positive difference for the populations of LMICs.

Complexities and costs of floodplain buyout implementation

Public acquisitions of floodplain properties, or “buyouts,” whereby governments purchase properties at risk of flooding from willing sellers and convert them to open space, are a widely used strategy for reducing risk. Since 1990, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided funding for more than 40,000 properties. Yet, little is known about the costs of buyout implementation, even though federal funding requirements mandate a complex set of activities undertaken by local, state, and federal government staff. This lack of understanding of buyout activity costs hinders development of evidence-based policy recommendations. To address this gap, we surveyed local and state government officials and consultants who have worked on floodplain buyout projects. Our survey results provide the first systematic, activity-level financial documentation of buyout projects in the U.S. Local and state government respondents reported median per-property activity costs of $14,428 and $8,161 (or 9.64% and 6.95% of property purchase costs), respectively. Respondents also reported significant variation in the activities undertaken as part of each project; community engagement strategies were particularly diverse, suggesting some households may not be adequately informed as a result of insufficient funding, time, or technical capacity for these activities. The varied and complex structures of buyout projects, as well as the attendant activity costs, pose barriers to implementation for local governments. Our results suggest both that: a) additional support and flexibility may be needed for critical activities that improve the experience of buyout participants; and b) reducing other activity costs may produce significant savings, which in turn could be used to improve the quality and expand the scope of buyout projects.

Developing and Sustaining Police–researcher Partnerships

Abstract Developing and sustaining partnerships between the police and researchers has long been a challenge. There have been national federal grant programmes aimed at developing these partnerships and they have been helpful. In most cases, the partnerships lapsed when the funds are expended. Nevertheless, progress has been made over the years and there are examples of police–researcher partnerships but relatively few are sustained long-term relationships. These partnerships have become increasingly important as community advocates make demands for police reforms; many of which are not evidence based. This article identifies and discusses some of the challenges the police face and various reform proposals. It also identifies several long-term successful partnerships and includes a more detailed description of two of them—University of Cincinnati/Cincinnati Police and Arizona State University/Phoenix Police. The article discusses the author’s experience with police–researcher partnerships as a police chief and researcher over his 53-year career in policing. Finally, the article encourages police and researchers to think more deeply about three areas: funding, community engagement, and communications strategy. Funding is fundamental to sustaining the partnerships and supporting them without a total reliance on external resources is crucial. Transparency has become an essential part of establishing public trust and researchers must begin engaging the community in the process. Finally, a communications strategy as a part of the study would enhance the understanding of findings and reinforce the value of investing in research.

Effective Approaches to Combat Vaccine Hesitancy.

Effective Approaches to Combat Vaccine Hesitancy.

146 Health equity approach to statewide outreach to under-resourced communities during COVID

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Despite a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority and under-resourced communities, nearly all COVID-19 resources have only been online in English. A statewide coalition of community and academic partners used community-engaged strategies to provide tailored outreach to diverse populations. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The STOP COVID-19 CA statewide team had a workgroup focused on communications. Members of this group represented different sectors, racial/ethnic groups, disciplines, and regions across the state. They had regular meetings to discuss and strategize how to overcome the impact of historic and structural racism on access to COVID-19 resources, including testing, vaccines, and protective equipment. The team also shared regular updates about changes in community concerns and needs as well as new, tailored resources. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Together, the team has been able to reach diverse populations across the state, including providing information about COVID-19 in multiple languages and formats, from radio to virtual town halls to local health fairs. The multiple sites also increased access to vaccines and testing through trusted community leaders and locations, including church-based locations to bringing vaccines and testing directly to workplaces. These community pop-up vaccination sites have helped to vaccinate large numbers of diverse populations, some of whom were initially unsure about getting the vaccine, which has helped to reduce the gaps in community vaccination rates by race/ethnicity. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: This network of community-engaged strategies utilized for rapid COVID-19 response could also be used to for responses to future public health emergencies, addressing chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, hypertension), or even other complex issues that affect society and health (e.g., climate change).