The CTSA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Task Force’s recommendations for the CTSA program consortium

Introduction: The Institute of Translational Health Sciences (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program hub) developed a program coined Community Voices to invite communities to submit project ideas and be matched with academic researchers. We describe formative research to understand community and academic researcher perspectives on how the program could facilitate collaborations addressing community priorities. Methods: We conducted four focus groups with 31 community-based organization (CBO) representatives and 11 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho regions. Questions included the appeal of Community Voices to engage community and academic partners, potential program usefulness, and Community Voices’ potential role in building community–academic partnerships. We used an inductive, constant comparison approach to code transcripts and thematic analysis to generate themes. Results: Most CBO representatives were female (87.1%) and Hispanic/Latino (61.3%). Most academic researchers had a PhD (63.6%) and worked at a university (81.8%). The themes were: (1) community–academic partnerships built on trust will offer mutual benefit, (2) community-initiated project ideas should prioritize community needs, (3) matchmaking will accelerate connections but should not replace time to foster partnership, (4) Community Voices should go beyond matchmaking and provide ongoing support/training, and (5) fostering effective communication is key to partnership success. Conclusions: Community Voices is a novel, bidirectional community engagement program model that advances current practices of prioritizing researchers’ project ideas. This community-driven program may shift the future direction of community engagement practices where prioritizing community’s ideas becomes the norm of community–academic partnerships in clinical and translational science.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The community voices program to facilitate community–academic researcher partnerships: Stakeholder perspectives on the program’s usefulness

Ramirez,

Wool,

Bishop

et al. 2023

“…Better and more effective methods of data collection processes for any data related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are also needed (see supplemental material for more). It does not suffice to have a vocal commitment to improving DEI when there is no data (and especially good quality data) to track these issues [ 21 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A landscape assessment of CTSA evaluators and their work in the CTSA consortium, 2021 survey findings

Hoyo,

Nehl,

Dozier

et al. 2024

This article presents a landscape assessment of the findings from the 2021 Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Evaluators Survey. This survey was the most recent iteration of a well established, national, peer-led systematic snapshot of the CTSA evaluators, their skillsets, listed evaluation resources, preferred methods, and identified best practices. Three questions guided our study: who are the CTSA evaluators, what competencies do they share and how is their work used within hubs. We describe our survey process (logistics of development, deployment, and differences in historical context with prior instruments); and present its main findings. We provide specific recommendations for evaluation practice in two main categories (National vs Group-level) including, among others, the need for a national, strategic plan for evaluation as well as enhanced mentoring and training of the next generation of evaluators. Although based on the challenges and opportunities currently within the CTSA Consortium, takeaways from this study constitute important lessons with potential for application in other large evaluation consortia. To our knowledge, this is the first time 2021 survey findings are disseminated widely, to increase transparency of the CTSA evaluators' work and to motivate conversations within hub and beyond, as to how best to leverage existent evaluative capacity.

“…Our ICRE-JEDI rubric is a concrete step in that direction. Like the DEIA Learning System Framework developed by the CTSA DEIA Task Force [29], a rubric-based effort to institutionalize and assess JEDI can be undertaken regardless of whether a department, division, or institute is at an earlier or later stage of JEDI consciousness. By following the process outlined in this manuscript, the ICRE-JEDI rubric can be customized by any academic entity to meet their unique characteristics and needs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time to act: A rubric-based approach for institutionalizing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion

Norman,

Radomski,

Proulx

et al. 2023

Attacks on minoritized communities and increasing awareness of the societal causes of health disparities have combined to highlight deep systemic inequities. In response, academic health centers have prioritized justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in their strategic goals. To have a sustained impact, JEDI efforts cannot be siloed; rather, they must be woven into the fabric of our work and systematically assessed to promote meaningful outcomes and accountability. To this end, the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Clinical Research Education assembled a task force to create and apply a rubric to identify short and long-term JEDI goals, assess the current state of JEDI at our Institute, and make recommendations for immediate action. To ensure deep buy-in, we gathered input from diverse members of our academic community, who served on targeted subcommittees. We then applied a three-step process to ensure rapid forward progress. We emerged with concrete actions for priority focus and a plan for ongoing assessment of JEDI institutionalization. We believe our process and rubric offer a scalable and adaptable model for other institutions and departments to follow as we work together across academic medical institutions to put our justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion goals into meaningful action.