About

The CTSI-CN partnered with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) to increase community health centers’ (CHC) capacity to engage in translational research. Because of their central role in furnishing high quality primary care to low-income patients, CHCs represent a critical means by which both evidence-based health care interventions and innovations can reach at-risk populations.

In order to facilitate CHC staff and consumer governing board participation in all phases of the research process, CTSI-CN and NACHC worked with a number organizations to develop a free online training resource for community health centers interested in building their research capacity. The website is organized into a series of categories that have several resources which cover a range of topics and stages of engagement, ranging from basic introductory modules to more advanced modules. These include, but are not limited to:

Research readiness assessments
Building trusting partnerships between different organizations and institutions
Understanding IRB requirements and challenges
Designing and implementing qualitative, statistical, economic, or cost-effectiveness research
Disseminating research in community-appropriate ways
Writing a federal grant proposal

Note: Several of these resources also count towards Continuing Education (CE) Credits.

Increasingly, Federally-Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are engaging in research as a way to achieve higher standards of care, narrow disparities, and improve community health, and many FQHCs are interested in increasing their capacity to conduct community-based research, including Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR).  CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that engages community stakeholders as equal partners in all phases of the research process.  CBPR enables unique partnerships that share interests, resources, and knowledge.  Given their community setting, governance and local ownership, FQHCs are uniquely positioned to participate in CBPR.  To facilitate FQHC involvement in research including CBPR, this website provides training resources to help FQHCs build the skills needed to design, implement, analyze, publish and disseminate research with their community stake-holders.