Integrating community voices in the research continuum: Perspectives on a consultation service

Crystal D Evans; Joy P Nanda; Pamela Ouyang; Lee Bone; Samuel Byiringiro; Cyd Lacanienta; Roger Clark; Christine Weston; Hae-Ra Han; Mia Terkowitz; Barbara Bates-Hopkins; Panagis Galiatsatos; Ashley Jingzhi Xu; Sarah Stevens; Cheryl R Himmelfarb

doi:10.1017/cts.2023.600

Integrating community voices in the research continuum: Perspectives on a consultation service

J Clin Transl Sci. 2023 Jul 28;7(1):e177. doi: 10.1017/cts.2023.600. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Crystal D Evans^{1

2}, Joy P Nanda², Pamela Ouyang^{1

2

3}, Lee Bone^{1

2

3

4

5}, Samuel Byiringiro^{1

2

5}, Cyd Lacanienta^{1

2}, Roger Clark², Christine Weston^{1

2

4}, Hae-Ra Han^{1

2

3

4}, Mia Terkowitz^{1

2}, Barbara Bates-Hopkins^{1

2

4}, Panagis Galiatsatos^{1

2

3}, Ashley Jingzhi Xu^{1

2

5}, Sarah Stevens^{1

2}, Cheryl R Himmelfarb^{1

2

3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
² Community Research Advisory Council, The Johns Hopkins ICTR, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁴ The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁵ The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Abstract

The Community Research Advisory Council (C-RAC) of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research was established in 2009 to provide community-engaged research consultation services. In 2016-2017, C-RAC members and researchers were surveyed on their consultation experiences. Survey results and a 2019 stakeholder meeting proceeding helped redesign the consultation services. Transitioning to virtual consultations during COVID-19, the redesigning involved increasing visibility, providing consultation materials in advance, expanding member training, and effective communications. An increase in consultations from 28 (2009-2017) to 114 (2020-2022) was observed. Implementing stakeholder-researcher inputs is critical to holistic and sustained community-engaged research.

Keywords: Translational research; community advisory board; community engagement; consultation service; research continuum.