The Learning and Action in Community Health project was implemented to gather preliminary data needed to inform community-engaged educational approaches to increase clinical research participation among racial minorities. The Health Belief Model was the theoretical framework utilized to develop the intervention and assessment tools. An educational session about clinical research and biorepository participation was designed using clinicaltrials.gov information and administered to adult, African American community residents (n = 60) in Atlanta, Georgia. Pre- and post-tests were collected and analyzed to assess changes in participants’ knowledge, perceptions, and willingness to participate in clinical studies and biorepositories. There were statistically significant changes in knowledge about joining a clinical study (p < 0.001) and registry or biorepository (p < 0.001). There was no statistically significant change in willingness to participate in clinical research or biorepositories after the educational session. Focus groups were conducted to gather feedback on the educational session and perceived barriers and benefits to participating in clinical research. Perceived benefits were improving health, receiving incentives, early detection of health issues, and access to care. Perceived barriers included fear, lack of knowledge, historical mistrust of research, and time constraints. Results have implications for subsequent community-engaged approaches to increasing minority participation in clinical research.

Introduction: The Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) seeks to improve population health by accelerating the translation of scientific discoveries in the laboratory and clinic into practices for the community. CTSAs achieve this goal, in part, through their pilot project programs that fund promising early career investigators and innovative early-stage research projects across the translational research spectrum. However, there have been few reports on individual pilot projects and their impacts on the investigators who receive them and no studies on the long-term impact and outcomes of pilot projects. Methods: The Georgia CTSA funded 183 pilot projects from 2007 to 2015. We used a structured evaluation framework, the payback framework, to document the outcomes of 16 purposefully-selected pilot projects supported by the Georgia CTSA. We used a case study approach including bibliometric analyses of publications associated with the selected projects, document review, and investigator interviews. Results: These pilot projects had positive impact based on outcomes in five “payback categories”: (1) knowledge; (2) research targeting, capacity building, and absorption; (3) policy and product development; (4) health benefits; and (5) broader economic benefits. Conclusions: Results could inform our understanding of the diversity and breadth of outcomes resulting from Georgia CTSA-supported research and provide a framework for evaluating long-term pilot project outcomes across CTSAs.

The NIH-funded Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program is currently funding 18 academic institutions to strengthen the research environment and contribution to health disparities research. The purpose of this multiphase mixed-methods study was to establish a uniform evaluation framework for demonstrating the collective success of this research consortium. Methods included discussions of aims and logic models at the RCMI Evaluators’ Workshop, a literature review to inform an evaluation conceptual framework, and a case study survey to obtain evaluation-related information and metrics. Ten RCMIs participated in the workshop and 14 submitted responses to the survey. The resultant RCMI Evaluation Conceptual Model presents a practical ongoing approach to document RCMIs’ impacts on health disparities. Survey results identified 37 common metrics under four primary categories. Evaluation challenges were issues related to limited human resources, data collection, decision-making, defining metrics, cost-sharing, and revenue-generation. There is a need for further collaborative efforts across RCMI sites to engage program leadership and community stakeholders in addressing the identified evaluation challenges and measurement. Program leadership should be engaged to apply the Evaluation Conceptual Framework and common metrics to allow for valid inter-institutional comparisons and consortium-wide evaluations. Stakeholders could ensure evaluation metrics are used to facilitate community impacts.

This article describes the participatory evalu­ation framework for the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center for Health Disparities Research (TCC) funded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities. In collaboration with TCC stake­holders, logic models, the McKinlay model, and process and outcome evaluation plans, including quantitative and qualitative methods, have been developed and used to document the impact of the TCC. The McKinlay model, a widely used compre­hensive health model for eliminating health disparities, was also tailored to document the outcomes of the TCC. The process and outcome evaluation plans for the TCC guide continuous improvement and the achieve­ment of its specific aims. The evaluation of the TCC occurred between 2012 and 2019 and involved key stakeholders in TCC re­search and programming. Several challenges exist for implementing an evaluation plan of a health equity-focused policy research center. However, we learned several lessons that will ensure progress toward specific aims and will help the TCC serve as a model for similar programs and centers.Ethn Dis. 2019;29(Suppl 2):385-392. doi:10.18865/ed.29.S2.385