Colorado Immersion Training in Community Engagement: Because You Can’t Study What You Don’t Know

Background: Community engagement (CE)has become a major element in medical research. In alliance with the goals of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Award program, Colorado Immersion Training in Community Engagement (CIT) is a community–campus partnership that aims to introduce an expanded pool of researchers to communitybased participatory research (CBPR) and CE.

Objectives: To describe CIT components and preliminary results.

Methods: CIT attempts to support a change in the research trajectory of academic health researchers, program developers, and graduate students toward CE. The program occurs on campus and in six community settings: Urban African American, urban Asian and refugee, urban Latino, urban American Indian/Alaska Native, rural northeast Colorado, and rural San Luis Valley. Components include a 4-week Directed Reading, a seminar on CBPR, 4-day community immersion, reflection, and 6-month support. Evaluation describes recruitment, implementation, and participants’ understanding of CBPR and skills post-training.

Results: Fifty-eight people have participated. A comprehensive curriculum was developed to address (1) principals of CBPR, (2) health disparities, (3) listening to community, (4) self-reflection, and (5) engagement tools. Community immersions expose participants to a community’s culture and opportunities to discuss health issues with a range of community members. Local “community guides” enhance participants’ experience. Of the first two cohorts, 90% changed the way they plan to approach their research, 94% changed how they viewed community involvement in research, and 77% learned new skills to help engage communities in research.

Conclusions: CIT applies to and positively impacts researchers from a variety of disciplines. CIT creates opportunities for long lasting partnerships between researchers and communities.