Community-Engaged Research (CEnR) and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) require validated measures and metrics for evaluating research partnerships and outcomes. There is a need to adapt and translate existing measures for practical use with diverse and non-English-speaking communities. This paper describes the Spanish translation and adaptation of Engage for Equity’s Community Engagement Survey (E2 CES), a nationally validated and empirically-supported CEnR evaluation tool, into the full-length “Encuesta Comunitaria,” and a pragmatic shorter version “Fortaleciendo y Uniendo EsfueRzos Transdisciplinarios para Equidad de Salud” (FUERTES).

Community and academic partners from the mainland US, Puerto Rico, and Nicaragua participated in translating and adapting E2 CES, preserving content validity, psychometric properties, and importance to stakeholders of items, scales, and CBPR constructs (contexts, partnership processes, intervention and research actions, and outcomes). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and convergent validity was assessed via a correlation matrix among scales.

Encuesta Comunitaria respondents (N = 57) self-identified as primarily Latinos/as/x (97%), female (74%), and academics (61%). Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.72 to 0.88 for items in the context domain to 0.90–0.92 for items in the intervention/research domain. Correlations were found as expected among subscales, with the strongest relationships found for subscales within the same CBPR domain. Results informed the creation of FUERTES.

Encuenta Comunitaria and FUERTES offer CEnR/CBPR practitioners two validated instruments for assessing their research partnering practices, and outcomes. Moreover, FUERTES meets the need for shorter pragmatic tools. These measures can further strengthen CEnR/CBPR involving Latino/a/x communities within the US, Latin America, and globally.

Community advisory boards (CABs) are an established approach to ensuring research reflects community priorities. This paper examines two CABs that are part of the HEALing Communities Study which aims to reduce overdose mortality. This analysis aimed to understand CAB members’ expectations, experiences, and perspectives on CAB structure, communication, facilitation, and effectiveness during the first year of an almost fully remote CAB implementation. Current literature exploring these perspectives is limited.

We collected qualitative and survey data simultaneously from members (n = 53) of two sites’ CABs in the first 9 months of CAB development. The survey assessed trust, communication, and relations; we also conducted 32 semi-structured interviews. We analyzed the survey results descriptively. The qualitative data were analyzed using a deductive codebook based on the RE-AIM PRISM framework. Themes were drawn from the combined qualitative data and triangulated with survey results to further enrich the findings.

CAB members expressed strong commitment to overall study goals and valued the representation of occupational sectors. The qualitative data described a dissonance between CAB members’ commitment to the mission and unmet expectations for influencing the study within an advisory role. Survey results indicated lower satisfaction with the research teams’ ability to create a mutually beneficial process, clear communication, and sharing of power.

Building a CAB on a remote platform, within a study utilizing a community engagement strategy, still presents challenges to fully realizing the potential of a CAB. These findings can inform more effective operationalizing of community-engaged research through enhanced CAB engagement.

The Institute of Translational Health Sciences (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program hub) developed a program coined Community Voices to invite communities to submit project ideas and be matched with academic researchers. We describe formative research to understand community and academic researcher perspectives on how the program could facilitate collaborations addressing community priorities.

We conducted four focus groups with 31 community-based organization (CBO) representatives and 11 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho regions. Questions included the appeal of Community Voices to engage community and academic partners, potential program usefulness, and Community Voices’ potential role in building community–academic partnerships. We used an inductive, constant comparison approach to code transcripts and thematic analysis to generate themes.

Most CBO representatives were female (87.1%) and Hispanic/Latino (61.3%). Most academic researchers had a PhD (63.6%) and worked at a university (81.8%). The themes were: (1) community–academic partnerships built on trust will offer mutual benefit, (2) community-initiated project ideas should prioritize community needs, (3) matchmaking will accelerate connections but should not replace time to foster partnership, (4) Community Voices should go beyond matchmaking and provide ongoing support/training, and (5) fostering effective communication is key to partnership success.

Community Voices is a novel, bidirectional community engagement program model that advances current practices of prioritizing researchers’ project ideas. This community-driven program may shift the future direction of community engagement practices where prioritizing community’s ideas becomes the norm of community–academic partnerships in clinical and translational science.

The partnership between a research community engagement team (CE Team) and a community advisory board (CAB) formed the basis for bidirectional communication in developing resources for participant recruitment in a DNA integrity study. Engaging with a minoritized community, this partnership focused on respect, accessibility, and expanded engagement.

A ten-member CAB, working in two groups defined by meeting time convenience, provided insight and feedback to the CE Team in the creation of recruitment and consent materials, via an iterative design process in which one CAB group reviewed and enhanced materials, and the second group tested and refined them further. The continuous analysis of CE Team notes from CAB meetings captured information needed both for materials refinement and implementation of CAB-suggested activities.

The partnership resulted in the co-creation of recruitment and consent materials that facilitated the enrollment of 191 individuals into the study. The CAB encouraged and assisted in expanded engagement inclusive of community leaders. This broader engagement provided information about the DNA integrity study to community decision-makers as well as responded to questions and concerns about the research. The bidirectional communication between the CAB and the CE Team encouraged the researchers to consider topics and research interests related to the current study but also responsive to community concerns.

The CAB helped the CE Team develop a better understanding of the language of partnership and respect. In this way, the partnership opened doors for expanded community engagement and effective communication with potential study participants.

There is an increasing recognition of the benefits of sustained community engagement (CE) that accrue to academic health centers and the communities they serve. However, the success and sustainability of CE projects rely on the efforts of individual faculty, learners, and community members, for whom CE efforts are typically added to their professional and personal priorities and responsibilities. This competition for time and resources between priorities and CE can discourage academic medical faculty from participating in CE activities. The Stacked Community Engagement model is proposed to synergize or “stack” responsibilities and goals onto the scaffolding of CE projects.

We examined the literature and expert CE practitioner opinion to identify the challenges faced by community-engaged academic faculty and the key characteristics of CE projects that successfully align and integrate with the priorities of faculty, learners, and community members. We synthesized this information to develop the conceptual Stacked CE model for developing CE academic medical faculty, then illustrated the model in heterogeneous CE programs to explore its generalizability, validity, and robustness.

The Stacked CE model, when applied to a specific nutrition education program (The Food Doctors) and outreach program (StreetLife Communities), provided a practical framework for examining the sustained success of a partnership between Medical College of Wisconsin faculty and medical students and the community.

The Stacked CE model is a meaningful framework for developing community-engaged academic medical faculty. By identifying overlap and integrating CE into professional activities with intention, CE practitioners can benefit from the deeper connections and sustainability.

Clinical and Translational Science Award Program (CTSA)-funded institutions were charged with developing clinical and translational science programs and transforming clinical research at their institutions. Community engagement (CE) was recognized as a key component and catalyst of that transformation. CE hub capacities for working with communities and translating knowledge into practice have been illustrated through their COVID-19 responses.

CE hub leaders met and discussed their CTSA’s early responses regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2-hour discussion was distilled into themes which were sent to the CE hub leaders with a request for written accounts describing actions taken to engage local partners, communities, and institutions. The written reports form the basis for this compendium.

Eighteen institutions submitted written reports describing activities in relation to six themes: (1) listen to the community and respond to concerns, (2) collect data to understand the impact of COVID-19 on distinct communities and groups, (3) communicate science and address misinformation, (4) collaborate with health departments, (5) engage hubs and underrepresented populations in COVID-19 research, and (6) support our own well-being and that of others.

Bidirectional interactions comprise the foundation of CE, which requires trusted partnerships that sustain communication through a series of activities and goals. The nimble responses to the pandemic substantiate the need for CE programs to maintain the infrastructure necessary to achieve the primary CTSA goals of improving health within and across communities and localities as well as expanding research participation of community members.

Community Advisory Boards (CABs) are typically comprised of adult community members who provide feedback on health-related, adult-focused research. Few, if any, CABs comprised of youth participants exist. In 2019, a Midwest medical center recruited a diverse group of 18 11–17-year-old community members to a Pediatric Advisory Board (PAB) to provide feedback on the recruitment and involvement of minors in research.

Semi-structured interviews with n = 12 PAB members were conducted to understand their experiences and views on participating in the PAB. Parents (n = 7) were interviewed separately to assess the congruence of views on PAB membership between parents and their children. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed to identify iterative themes.

PAB members thought the PAB addressed an unmet need of soliciting feedback from youth to develop age-appropriate study materials and to understand potential concerns of young participants. While PAB members expressed interest in the research topics presented by researchers, a few members indicated barriers to full participation, including lack of self-confidence, anxiety, and discomfort sharing opinions in a group setting. Parents supported their child’s PAB participation and hoped it would help them build confidence in developing and sharing their opinions in ways that were meaningful for them, which PAB members largely reported occurring over their period of involvement.

Findings from a novel Midwest PAB indicated benefits to PAB members. While contributing to pediatric research planning by providing feedback on recruiting youth and improving study protocols, they gained confidence in providing opinions on biomedical research and developed their scientific literacy.

The extent to which Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) programs offer publicly accessible online resources for training in community-engaged research (CEnR) core competencies is unknown. This study cataloged publicly accessible online CEnR resources from CTSAs and mapped resources to CEnR core competency domains.

Following a search and review of the current literature regarding CEnR competencies, CEnR core competency domains were identified and defined. A systematic review of publicly accessible online CEnR resources from all 64 current CTSAs was conducted between July 2018 and May 2019. Resource content was independently reviewed by two reviewers and scored for the inclusion of each CEnR core competency domain. Domain scores across all resources were assessed using descriptive statistics.

Eight CEnR core competency domains were identified. Overall, 214 CEnR resources publicly accessible online from 35 CTSAs were eligible for review. Scoring discrepancies for at least one domain within a resource initially occurred in 51% of resources. “CEnR methods” (50.5%) and “Knowledge and relationships with communities” (40.2%) were the most frequently addressed domains, while “CEnR program evaluation” (12.1%) and “Dissemination and advocacy” (11.2%) were the least frequently addressed domains. Additionally, challenges were noted in navigating CTSA websites to access CEnR resources, and CEnR competency nomenclature was not standardized.

Our findings guide CEnR stakeholders to identify publicly accessible online resources and gaps to address in CEnR resource development. Standardized nomenclature for CEnR competency is needed for effective CEnR resource classification. Uniform organization of CTSA websites may maximize navigability.