Community Engagement And Dissemination Core

Purpose

The Community Engagement and Dissemination Core (CEDC) build upon already established relationships in the community to provide researchers and community members with the recognized need of community engagement in academia, where the value of research evidence and community wisdom will provide effective strategies to address health disparities. This multi-faceted approach will ensure the Center’s meaningful community participation in research, training, and dissemination activates. Recognizing that effective community partnerships are constructed over time through trust, respect, and commitment, the strategies and tasks of the CEDC will be to foster and support the emergence of community engaged or participatory research relationships.

Organizational Structure

• Core Director: Emily Spence-Almaguer, MSW, PhD, Associate Professor of Behavioral and Community Health
• Project Coordinator: Shlesma Chhetri
• Community Advisory Board: Key community leaders in the Dallas/Fort Worth area including public health departments, community-based organizations and service organizations

Core Initiatives

• Obesity Outreach and Prevention Initiative: The purpose of this initiative is to strengthen the efforts of the Greater Dallas Area Coalition to Prevent Childhood Obesity by building community capacity to reduce and prevent obesity among underserved Dallas County women.
• Breast Cancer Outreach and Prevention Initiative: The purpose of this initiative is to create a Tarrant County Cancer Disparities Coalition, with technical assistance from the Dallas Cancer Disparities Coalition, with a focus on building community capacity to reduce cancer health disparities.

For more information, contact Shlesma Chhetri – Shlesma.Chhetri@unthsc.edu.