The overarching goal of the Community Engagement Core is to improve the health of the Puerto Rican population through community-academic partnerships that provide advice on the development and application of basic, behavioral and clinical/health services research aimed at mitigating chronic diseases. To achieve this goal the following specific aims have been identified:

•    Assess existing community-academic partnerships involved in translational research and recommend resources and strategies needed to enhance and expand such partnerships in Puerto Rico.

•    Recruit and coordinate a Community Coalition Team (CCT) that will advise RCMI investigators on research areas of high interest to the community, strategies to improve the recruitment and retention of study participants, and methods to disseminate research findings to a variety of audiences.

•    Increase RCMI investigators’ ability to understand and incorporate community perspectives in research projects addressing chronic health conditions

•    Evaluate the activities of the RCMI-wide Community Coalition Team and the extent to which the Community Engagement Core has achieved its goals each year.

Stakeholders of the Community Coalition Team