NJ ACTS Community Scientist Program |
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The NJ ACTS Community Engagement Core is excited to announce the successful launch of the NJ ACTS Community Scientist Program on February 21, 2023! The cohort of 13 highly engaged community members have become Community Scientists and will be receiving a certificate of completion and digital badge - an icon that indicated this accomplishment and can be displayed, assessed, and verified online.
The program has been designed to provide researchers with rapid feedback from trained community members to ensure their research projects are culturally appropriate and relevant to the community. It aims to foster partnerships between community partners interested in being involved in research and researchers looking to engage the community in their research.
The program's second cohort will be launching soon. Interest and demand is high so we encourage you to save your seat fast!
Register for the program here.
For additional information, contact us at njactscommunity@rwjms.rutgers.edu
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The NJ HEROES TOO grant has officially ended and there are many accomplishments to celebrate.
Read about the study's national recognition by RADxUP.
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One-on-One Consultations
The CEC helps researchers obtain project-specific input from research, healthcare, community, and patient stakeholders to enhance research design, implementation, and dissemination.
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Community Engagement Virtual Salons (CEVS)
CEVS bring researchers together with patients, community members, and health care stakeholders to actively participate in cross-talk. It provides a forum for generating research questions, identifying evidence gaps, and defining outcomes meaningful to patients.
If you're interested in working with us, click here to learn more.
To see a CEVS in action, click on the summary videos featured below.
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CoMPoSER
Featuring Darina Petrovsky and Sophia Geisser from the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research.
December 1, 2022
In this salon, researchers wanted to learn:
- What are some ways to attract individuals to serve on the design team and community advisory boards?
- What is the best way to start building community relationships in the aging/dementia/arts space?
- How can we leverage existing partnerships and resources within Rutgers University to promote trust among the community?
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New Jersey Family Leave Insurance
Featuring Debra Lancaster, Rebecca Logue-Conroy, and Ludine Daux from Center for Women and Work.
May 6, 2022
In this salon, researchers wanted to learn:
- How often does your organization encounter someone who might need to take leave?
- How can organizations like yours educate potential leave-takers about their benefits?
- What barriers do you anticipate?
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If your research has benefited from one or more NJ ACTS resources, please remember to:
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Cite our CTSA grant, UL1TR003017, KL2TR003018, or TL1TR003019 in any relevant publications, abstracts, chapters, and/or posters.
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Submit your publications to PubMed Central (PMC) for compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
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Share your research updates with us by sending an email to: njactscommunity@rwjms.rutgers.edu
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PRINCETON - Using Artificial Intelligence and Innovative Design to Save Patient’s Lives During the COVID19 Pandemic
SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID19), which can severely hamper the function of a patient’s lungs and require that the patient utilize a medical device to help them respirate. One such device to help patients effectively respirate is a ventilator. Two groups of Princeton researchers, led by Daniel Cohen and Elad Hazan, set out to improve the two main issues with ventilator use. To read the full story, click here.
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NJIT - Machine Learning Expert Pan Xu Combats COVID Vaccine Inequity
An NJIT computer scientist studied COVID vaccine data from Minnesota to design equitable methods of distributing vital resources during any widespread emergency. The resulting algorithm showed that giving everyone equal access to vital resources isn’t necessarily the best approach, depending on the methods and desires of emergency authorities, explained Pan Xu, assistant professor in Ying Wu College of Computing.
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NJ ACTS 2022 Partnership and Innovation Accelerator Pilot Grant Program Awardees
The purpose of the Partnership and Innovation Accelerator Pilot (PIAP) Program is to facilitate collaborations between academic researchers and community organizations so they can work together on health research that benefits the community.
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Awarded Investigator: Sara Heinert, PhD, MPH
Dr. Sara Heinert is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ. Prior to joining Rutgers in 2020, Dr. Heinert spent 7 years with the Department of Emergency Medicine at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). During this time, she also obtained her PhD in Health Policy and Administration from the UIC School of Public Health. Dr. Heinert also holds a MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor and is a NJ ACTS KL2 Scholar. Dr. Heinert’s research interests lie at the intersection of public health and the emergency department, and specifically focus on social emergency medicine research that is patient-centered and addresses access to care and health disparities. For many patients, the emergency department is their only “touch point” with the health care system and Dr. Heinert is interested in developing innovative methods to screen and educate ED patients on their health conditions and connect them to primary care. Additionally, during her time in Chicago, Dr. Heinert was a co-founder of the CHAMPIONS program, which trains high school students to be health advocates and exposes them to healthcare careers. Dr. Heinert’s work has resulted in first-author publications in such journals as the American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Health Promotion, Academic Emergency Medicine, and Health Promotion Practice (HPP).
Awarded Project: Engaging Youth as Citizen Scientists to Determine Health Needs of New Brunswick Adults
The project began a sustainable partnership between an academic organization, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) Department of Emergency Medicine, and a community organization, New Brunswick Health Sciences Technology High School (NBHSTHS), to create a hands-on program where students act as citizen scientists to engage family and community members to obtain information on health needs and barriers. These findings can inform future health interventions for New Brunswick while engaging youth to drive their own inquisition about their community’s health. The study bridges Dr. Heinert’s experience with youth as health advocates and the prevalent issue of uncontrolled hypertension in the US to implement a youth-led digital education intervention to improve blood pressure for hypertensive adults who present to the emergency department.
So far, 40 high school students have completed the in-school hands-on course to learn about public health and act as citizen scientists. The first class of 26 students successfully completed 201 community health assessments with New Brunswick (NB) adults, of which 21% (43) were completed in Spanish, and completed 52 qualitative interviews with NB adults. Students determined that the biggest health issues for the community were: mental health, costs of healthcare, obesity, diabetes, physical health & COVID-19, and language barriers in healthcare. The second class of 14 students focused on diabetes, they organized and carried out a community health fair at the school in January 2023.
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"The PIAP award has been a wonderful catalyst for collaboration with my community partner, the New Brunswick Health Sciences Technology High School. Through the funding, we have started a new public health course at the school, engaged students to collect health needs of local adults, and held a community health fair, thus creating beneficial hands-on opportunities for students while learning about adult health needs to target in future research projects. Additionally and unexpectedly, I have been able to enlist the help of the school for successful youth and community member recruitment for a research study when clinical recruitment was failing." -Sara Heinert, PhD
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We would like to share your resources with the community. Please email your information to njactscommunity@rjwms.rutgers.edu to contribute to our next Quarterly Newsletter issue.
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Event Date: May 5, 2023
RSVP by April 15th!
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Continuing Education Opportunities |
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Free NIH Seminars for Clinical Researchers
Sex and Gender in Research
Interest in sex and gender in research—and resources to help investigators—is growing. In the 5 years since NIH enacted its pioneering Policy on Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV) there has been a lot of activity, including increased attention on sex differences and influences and many questions and requests for assistance.
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We would like to share your events with the community. Please email your event details to njactscommunity@rjwms.rutgers.edu to contribute to our next Quarterly Newsletter issue.
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New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science
This newsletter is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number, UL1TR003017 to Rutgers University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH.
You are receiving this newsletter because you are a member of NJ ACTS or have signed up to receive our emails.
To add a subscriber, please click here.
Send story ideas, events, and resources to njactscommunity@rwjms.rutgers.edu
Copyright 2022 New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science, all rights reserved.
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