# Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE · 2024 · $398,922

## Abstract

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE: PROGRAM SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Racial and ethnic health disparities persist, despite numerous mitigation efforts. It is indisputable that
community engagement in research is essential for developing and translating research to address these
disparities. An infrastructure to support community/academic research partnership development,
implementation, and translation of research findings into real-world settings is essential.
The Meharry Community Engagement Core (MCEC), established in the current grant cycle, is the first
organized unit at Meharry that exclusively supports community engaged research. Led by Meharry researchers
with extensive community engaged research experience, working in partnership with community stakeholders,
the MCEC “connects community members and organizations with Meharry researchers to conduct research
and share results that will improve health for communities that experience the poorest health outcomes.”
The goal of the MCEC is to support high impact, community engaged research and facilitate timely
dissemination and translation of results into sustainable real-world settings. In the next cycle, the following
aims will be implemented in support of this goal:
Specific Aim 1. Support existing and facilitate new long-term relationships with CBOs and other
community stakeholders. Select activities: Build/maintain a coalition of stakeholders using existing (e.g.,
pairing them to research roles/topics of interest) and new (e.g., broadly sharing lay dissemination products
from CBO/academic partnerships) strategies and foster collaboration between community stakeholders and
Research/Pilot project investigators by facilitating co-development of community-prioritized research questions.
Specific Aim 2. Enhance existing and implement new strategies to increase community participation in
research and recruitment and retention of study participants. Select activities: Increase opportunities for
community input and participation in research by expanding number and type of researchers that leverage CE
Studios8. Increase the number of participants in the Meharry Research Partners Database, a Meharry-only
research participant registry, by implementing Meharry student-developed social marketing campaigns.
Specific Aim 3. Enhance and expand research dissemination and translation efforts among diverse
stakeholder groups and audiences. Select activities: Increase lay dissemination of results from
CBO/academic partnerships by including it as an expected deliverable during partnership development.
Support planning processes to translate research findings into community/system-level changes by facilitating
modified versions of translation studios in which the focus will be on identifying next steps, feasibility of next
steps/alternatives, resources, and sustainability.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10854844
- **Project number:** 5U54MD007586-38
- **Recipient organization:** MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Stephania T. Miller-Hughes
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $398,922
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1997-09-30 → 2027-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10854844

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10854844, Community Engagement Core (5U54MD007586-38). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10854844. Licensed CC0.

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