# Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · CHARLES R. DREW UNIVERSITY OF MED & SCI · 2024 · $308,289

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE (CEC)
Research collaborations and partnerships are invaluable to CDU investigators to facilitate the exploration of
scientific arenas that lie beyond their areas of expertise and expand translational research. The university holds
a rich history of successful partnerships within the university, with other research institutions, and with the
community. The synergy of university and community partners makes it possible for CDU to respond to a rapidly
changing environment, by creating unprecedented opportunities for research linkages within and across
research domains in and outside of the university and with community partners. CDU has served as the lead
institution with the RCMI Translational Research Network (RTRN) consortium and the CDU- UCLA Cancer
Center to Eliminate Cancer Health Disparities and is an essential partner for UCLA-CTSI.
In the previous funding cycle, the CEC developed an avenue of research translation aimed at increasing health
disparities research and began anchoring translation opportunities for three key focus areas: cancer, cardio-
metabolic diseases, and HIV/AIDS. With the development of community collaborations, community expertise
was integrated through a series of educational opportunities to provide research translation knowledge for clinical
and community research addressing key focus areas of interest. Expanding knowledge with national inter-
institutional collaborative research through collaborations via RTRN and UCLA-CTSI facilitated components of
science translation.
Building key new constructs for community translation in the focus areas of cancer, cancer, cardio-metabolic
diseases, and HIV/AIDS requires adopting methods and approaches for translational science to be
transformative in communities. Accordingly, the CEC has four overriding objectives for the next funding cycle.
The first is to serve better Hispanic/Latino and African American populations groups affected by health disparities
and diseases, particularly those communities served by CDU and community partners. Second, we will embrace
new community-based participatory (CBPR) research frameworks to solidify partnerships. Third, we aim to
enhance new ideas of community organization and social action models. Fourth, we will integrate various
dimensions of translation with the potential for forging collaborations and partnerships that can embrace systems
change for reducing and eliminating health disparities in afflicted and vulnerable communities.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11000744
- **Project number:** 2U54MD007598-16
- **Recipient organization:** CHARLES R. DREW UNIVERSITY OF MED & SCI
- **Principal Investigator:** David Sane Martins
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $308,289
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2009-09-28 → 2029-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11000744

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11000744, Community Engagement Core (2U54MD007598-16). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-04 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11000744. Licensed CC0.

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