# RCMI Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA · 2024 · $314,087

## Abstract

SUMMARY - Community Engagement Core
The goal of the Community Engagement Core (CEC) is to facilitate meaningful community involvement to ensure
effective and trusted bi-directional relationships between researchers, clinicians and community. Expanded use
of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been noted as a “strategic imperative” to develop
effective interventions to address health disparities; it is an essential component of the research process. A
review of the history of earlier population-based studies, in both majority and minority populations, indicates that
requisite to a study's success is the comprehensive involvement of the study population's Community.
Community engagement strives to create action around community values, concerns and aspirations. It
formulates a platform for the establishment of effective, communicative partnerships that develop and shape
services and initiatives based on the community’s priorities and values. Through feedback, community
engagement also enables government and public decision-making stakeholders to listen and, in turn,
demonstrate the impact of community contribution. Overall, community engagement then builds deeper, stronger
and more trusting relationships between academicians, healthcare professionals, public organizations and
communities. The CEC will leverage the infrastructure and community networks established by Xavier and the
Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science (LACaTS) Center’s Community Engagement and Outreach
Resource (CEOR) Core, which Xavier leads. The CEC will embark on successful and impactful community
engagement strategies and activities by addressing three specific aims. Aim 1. Promote and sustain community-
academic partnerships through bidirectional knowledge sharing and community involvement to ensure that
intervention strategies and scientific discovery in health disparities are relevant to community needs and are
translated into community knowledge and practice. Aim 2. Build research and learning capacity among research
investigators, clinicians, community members, health systems, and potential research participants to conduct
innovative and transformative research projects to address community health needs, particularly in cancer
research and health disparities. Aim 3. Provide support for investigators in developing appropriate strategies to
facilitate dissemination of research findings of the center to the scientific and community organizations, and lay
communities. To effectively engage and communicate with the community, CEC will employ the CBPR principles
and methods in ensuring the needs of the community are ascertained and addressed through research, health
promotion and education. CEC will serve as a liaison between (1) investigators and community – fostering and
nurturing a bi-directional relationship between academic researchers and community; and (2) internal (Xavier)
and external (LACaTs) investigators – for the purpose of collaborative researc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10932347
- **Project number:** 5U54MD007595-17
- **Recipient organization:** XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
- **Principal Investigator:** LaKeisha Williams
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $314,087
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2009-09-24 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10932347

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10932347, RCMI Community Engagement Core (5U54MD007595-17). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10932347. Licensed CC0.

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