How Community Engagement Studios are Building Trust in Science

Dr. Keren Ladin

Incorporating patient and interest holder voices into study planning can help shorten the gap between research and its translation into practice. Engaging communities improves the relevance and feasibility of research while strengthening trust, understanding, and the reach of research dissemination. Although many investigators recognize the value of integrating patient and community perspectives into study development, they often lack the time, resources, and experience needed for meaningful engagement.

 

To help address these barriers, we launched Community Engagement (CE) Studios in 2025. Adapted from a model developed by the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, our CE Studios service is designed to provide investigators with a structured and easily accessible mechanism for engaging patients and community members at key points in the research lifecycle.

 

CE Studios prioritize providing timely feedback related to either study planning or addressing challenges to ongoing projects. Staff from our community engagement and research collaboration programs work with investigators to curate a one-time consultative session, refining key questions and identifying, recruiting, and preparing a panel of individuals from relevant patient populations or interest holder groups.

 

During the facilitated session, panelists serve as experts involved in dialogue, rather than as research participants. The perspectives they share, based on firsthand knowledge and lived experience, can help researchers gain a better understanding of community priorities and inform important elements of study design and implementation.

 

Since rolling out this service, we have conducted six CE Studios, bringing together more than 60 panelists to consider projects involving patient-focused clinical interventions and community-based public health studies.

 

Investigators have credited the feedback they received with changes ranging from improved recruitment language to the surfacing of practical concerns that led one to rethink an intervention. As indicated by post-studio evaluation survey responses, nearly all panelists also felt positive about their participation.