Developing relevant assessments of community-engaged research partnerships: A community-based participatory approach to evaluating clinical and health research study teams

Abstract

Abstract Background/Objective: In 2017, the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) and community partners in Flint, Michigan collaborated to launch a research funding program and evaluate the dynamics of those research partnerships receiving funding. While validated assessments for community-engaged research (CEnR) partnerships were available, the study team found none sufficiently relevant to conducting CEnR in the context of the work. MICHR faculty and staff along with community partners living and working in Flint used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop and administer a locally relevant assessment of CEnR partnerships that were active in Flint in 2019 and 2021. Methods: Surveys were administered each year to over a dozen partnerships funded by MICHR to evaluate how community and academic partners assessed the dynamics and impact of their study teams over time. Results: The results suggest that partners believed that their partnerships were engaging and highly impactful. Although many substantive differences between community and academic partners’ perceptions over time were identified, the most notable regarded the financial management of the partnerships. Conclusion: This work contributes to the field of translational science by evaluating how the financial management of community-engaged health research partnerships in a locally relevant context of Flint can be associated with these teams’ scientific productivity and impact with national implications for CEnR. This work presents evaluation methods which can be used by clinical and translational research centers that strive to implement and measure their use of CBPR approaches.