Title:Giving voice to the patient perspective

Community engagement is a critical part of the research process, ensuring that a study’s findings meet the needs and improve the lives of the populations being studied. At the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS), the community engagement team empowers researchers by connecting them with community members or patients who can offer important insights and feedback on their work.

“Our goal is to engage and support investigators across the consortium to conduct research that is relevant and well-aligned with the needs of the population we serve,” says Seble Kassaye, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine and medical director of the GHUCCTS Hub Liaison Team.

“We provide consultation services to bridge investigators to the community, so researchers design studies that resonate with the community,” adds Kassaye. “We want to ensure successful recruitment and retention of participants, allowing researchers to answer the key questions that led to their research study.”

Tactics for community engagement exist along a continuum, ranging from simply reaching out to a population to share information about the research, to holding listening sessions, to the establishment of a joint relationship between the researcher and community members.

After developing a community engagement plan with the researcher, the engagement team, along with the GHUCCTS recruitment team, can help them by designing informative and eye-catching flyers for events, connecting researchers with relevant community groups, providing letters of support and referrals to other GHUCCTS services, and organizing and facilitating events.