Director
Curt Beckwith, MD
Deputy Director
Timothy Flanigan, MD
Contact
Haley McKee
Core Manager
hmckee@Lifespan.org
The Community Engaged Research Core (CERC) supports research related to substance use and overdose and develops early-stage investigators to conduct research in this high priority area. This Core promotes research among people who are impacted by opioids and overdose, particularly people who are vulnerable and underserved, and supports the overall mission of the COBRE by building research infrastructure and providing services to early-stage investigators to support the recruitment and retention of vulnerable and underserved individuals as research participants. This Core emphasizes the importance of community engagement with the goal of developing more robust, rigorous, and competitive research projects and grants. The focus on community engagement is imperative to provide investigators with the skills necessary to succeed in a global research environment that is prioritizing both community engagement and inclusion of people with lived experience, particularly related to research among populations who use substances and historically marginalized communities.
Core Goals:
- Develop, promote, and support best practices related to community engagement in research on opioids and overdose. The CERC will promote best practices by offering trainings and consultations to COBRE supported investigators, affiliated researchers, and the community partner organizations on the core’s five Principles of Community Empowered Research, promoting the established Community Advisory Board (CAB) to advise COBRE investigators at all stages of research, and developing and implementing standards for trauma-informed research for COBRE projects.
- Promote and support the ethical conduct of research on opioids and overdose. Providing regulatory support and consultation services for human subjects research, including IRB application support; creating project-specific advisory panels comprised of researchers and community stakeholders to provide guidance on study design, implementation, and dissemination activities; mentoring investigators in both traditional research ethics and the ethics of community engaged research.
- Promote Research on Harm Reduction (HR). Reflecting the new emphasis on HR by NIH, the CERC will familiarize the research community with HR by facilitating research presentations and workshops. The Core will provide HR training to potential community partners, including clinical partners and community organizations. These trainings offered to community partners are essential to building and maintaining relationships that allow us to support COBRE investigators in carrying out HR research, especially in engaging with HR organizations and people who use drugs. Additionally, The CERC will provide technological support for harm reduction research (e.g., training and access to drug testing equipment; fentanyl test strips, etc.).
- Promoting the role of community engagement in achieving rigor and reproducibility. In support of the COBRE’s general emphasis on rigor and reproducibility, we will promote how community engaged participatory research (CEPR) strategies can support rigor in study design and grant proposals. The CERC provides mentorship for new investigators on integrating community-engaged research into study design, recruitment, data collection, and analysis. We will additionally provide workshops and trainings on how community engaged research can assist in strengthening attention to rigor, replication, and issues of external validity across COBRE research activities.
Core Services:
- Facilitate access to patient populations
- Provide guidance in appropriate study design for underserved and underrepresented populations
- Provide research staff trained in best practices of recruitment and retention
- Support for development of data collection protocols and Standard Operating Procedures
- Negotiate various recruitment settings
- Guidance in human subject’s protection and regulatory oversight of research conducted among vulnerable populations
- Provide Community Advisory Boards, Data Safety Monitoring Boards, and engagement of community partners
- Advise researchers on how emerging methods of synthesizing quantitative and qualitative data may be used to strengthen data analysis through more rigorous integration of data generated by community engaged participatory research
- Facilitate community feedback to ensure intervention development and study design is culturally informed and practically feasible to increase external validity
- Support of investigators to recruit people with lived experience as paid interns, consultants, or staff
- Providing mentorship, skills training, and fundamental research education to people with lived experience who are working with COBRE researchers
- Offering trainings and consultations to COBRE supported investigators and affiliated researchers on the Five Principles of Community Empowered Research
- Assisting researchers with dissemination of findings and providing messaging support to share information within impacted communities