The Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core has the goal to sustain and grow collaborative research that addresses health equity in Oklahoma with the direct involvement of communities, patients, and providers. There is a range of underlying health issues that affect the tribal and rural populations in the state that contribute to Oklahoma's burden of chronic illness. Nearly all the communities in the state have high-rates of diseases that include diabetes, heart disease, rheumatologic disease, and cancer. As an original key component activity of the Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Resources (OSCTR), the CEO Core has been highly successful in building relations and collaborations that have resulted in major statewide or community-oriented approaches to address these health issues. The core has supported two practice-based research networks and established the Oklahoma Primary Healthcare Improvement Cooperative (OPHIC) to provide test beds for primary care and pediatrics clinical and translational efforts to disseminate and implement research findings that improve the delivery of healthcare and improve health outcomes. The Core has provided support to grow research capacity and activities in tribal communities through the highly successful Tribal Engagement Unit and our unique partnerships. The Core will continue to work closely with its primary community partners, including the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board, which represents 42 federal tribes and 55 tribal/IHS health facilities in Oklahoma and Kansas, the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations, and OPHIC to broaden these activities and infrastructure support for community engagement efforts in tribal and rural populations, as well as in primary healthcare settings. The CEO Core is expanding on its previous activities by working with the Pilot Projects Program to implement a new Community-Engaged Research Exploratory Award program to provide small awards to seed new collaborative efforts between researchers and communities. The core is adding direct support to OSCTR investigators and Scholars through highly-trained and experienced research assistants who are already embedded in communities and can help launch dissemination and implementation research projects to improve the health and health care of tribal and rural populations. The CEO will work with the other OSCTR cores to establish new programs to mentor and train individuals in community-engaged research. The CEO Core activities, and our inclusive Community Advisory Board, are critical for sustained stakeholder engagement that allows our researchers to gather information from our communities, explore community research needs, protect communities from research risks unique to minority populations, resolve barriers to research efforts and complete effective research projects. The CEO Core will continue to strengthen relationships between OSCTR partners that allow for durable and meaningful collaborations to address the primary health concerns in our communities and will develop and support infrastructure that increases research capacity within community partners.
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