Community Engagement and Collaboration

The AAMC has curated this collection of resources describing why community engagement is necessary for promoting health equity. This section will be regularly updated with the latest resources, articles, and toolkits created and offered by the AAMC and others.

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Perspectives on the Central Role of Community Engagement

The resources that follow present arguments for the importance of community engagement to advance health equity and improve population health.

Shifting Academic Health Centers From a Culture of Community Service to Community Engagement and Integration, Academic Medicine (2019)
This article describes the need for academic health centers to develop a comprehensive approach to community engagement to improve population health.
Now Is Our Time to Act: Why Academic Medicine Must Embrace Community Collaboration as Its Fourth Mission, Academic Medicine (2021)
The authors, all AAMC leaders, call on academic medicine to embrace community collaboration as its fourth mission and on academic medical institutions to do more to build a strong network of collaborators across public and population health, government, community groups, and the private sector.
Academic Medicine’s Fourth Mission: Building on Community-Oriented Primary Care to Achieve Community-Engaged Health Care, Academic Medicine (2023)
The AAMC’s call to prioritize community collaboration and health equity as pillars of the academic medicine mission echo earlier work on community-oriented primary care (COPC) and an even more robust model that builds on COPC, community-engaged health care.
A Population Health Impact Pyramid for Health Care, Milbank Quarterly (2023)
This article describes a 7-tier framework for trustworthiness and multisector coalition building to improve population health. Foundational to all tiers are authentic community partnerships, demonstrating individual and organizational trustworthiness, and a commitment to implementation and accountability.
Culturally Informed Community Engagement, RTI International (2023)
This paper describes strategies for conducting community-engaged research that promotes health equity, inclusive science, and authentic relationships with community partners.

Toolkits and Guides for Community Engagement

The resources that follow are organized according to the actions you can take to communicate and advocate for community engagement within your institutions, with community partners, and across your local, state, and national communities.

Developing Partnerships

AAMC Center for Health Justice Multisector Partner Group
This group from diverse backgrounds and sectors — including and beyond health care and academic medicine —will use their expertise and leadership to advance the mission of the Center for Health Justice to address the complex constellation of social and political factors that contribute to community health and health inequities. This group is one example of how academic and research institutions can deeply engage many communities and sectors to form sustainable, effective, co-equal partnerships for health equity.
Building Trust and Confidence Through Partnerships Grant Program
The AAMC maintains a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to promote confidence in COVID-19 and routine pediatric vaccines and increase vaccinations around the country. As part of this program, the AAMC granted support to five community partnerships that are promoting stronger cross-sector collaboration to improve access to and confidence in vaccines.
Building a Systems Approach to Community Health and Health Equity for Academic Health Centers
Medical schools and teaching hospitals are addressing health inequities across their research, education, and clinical missions, but these efforts aren’t always coordinated across the institution. To help overcome this lack of coordination, this set of resources and tools is designed to help academic health centers build a systems approach to community health and health equity.
Promoting Authentic Academic—Community Engagement to Advance Health Equity, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2023)
This publication highlights exemplary programs that offer effective approaches to enhance the strength of community partnerships.
What does long-term systems change look like for partnerships who work together to change the conditions that drive health outcomes? Eight years ago, The BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) launched to support communities that are advancing health equity through multi-sector, community-driven partnerships. In their latest report, “More Than the Sum: Networks, Public Will, and Scaling,” they share three new norms that evolve after a BUILD award, and how those new norms continue to advance systems change and drive long-term health equity.

Communicating with Community Partners

The Principles of Trustworthiness
This foundational toolkit includes a ready-to-use framework and tools for organizations working to become trustworthy partners to their communities through humility, authenticity, intersectionality, and long-term commitment.
Community Engagement Toolkits
These toolkits help institutions engage their academic and local communities in dialogue to identify actions individuals or institutions can take to move communities toward health and health care equity. Learn more about community engagement with newly arrived immigrants, people affected by mass incarceration, Native American communities, and more.
Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concept
Produced in partnership with the American Medical Association, this resource guides institutions toward a deeper understanding of equity-focused, person-first language and narratives and why these choices matter on the road to trustworthiness and meaningful community engagement.

Evaluating Your Institution's Community Engagement

The Health Equity Inventory
This spreadsheet helps teaching hospitals coordinate and evaluate their community health work across research, clinical, education, and community engagement efforts.
Assessment Instruments for Measuring Community Engagement
This resource from the National Academy of Medicine includes 28 instruments to support assessing community engagement in a consistent way.
Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement: A Conceptual Model to Advance Health Equity through Transformed Systems for Health
This publication from the National Academy of Medicine provides community-engaged, effective, and evidence-based tools to those who want to measure engagement to ensure that it is meaningful and impactful with an equity focus.

Advocating for Community Engagement

The AAMC Collaborative for Health Equity: Act, Research, Generate Evidence (CHARGE)
This action-focused network and virtual community includes over 1000 multisector health justice champions and their community partners across the US working together on policy, partnerships, collaborations, and research that impacts health equity at institutional, local, state, and federal levels.
What Health Care Organizations Can Do to Get Out the Vote
Increasing the number of engaged voters expands representation, shaping the policies that affect the health of our neighbors and community. Providing a nonpartisan opportunity for community members to register to vote and participate in elections is a critical action health care institutions, providers, and professionals can take to improve civic health.

Related Podcasts

PODCAST: COMMUNITY HEALTH CONNECT SERIES

Community Health Connect is a limited series with the AAMC's "Beyond the White Coat" podcast about the strength and resiliency of community-based nonprofit organizations in the Washington, D.C. area. These organizations are grappling with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community health. Access all episodes on the AAMC's website or wherever you normally stream podcasts
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Pillars of Community Engagement

Community Engagement
Community engagement is the active collaboration of individuals, communities, and organizations in decision-making, program development, and the delivery of healthcare services to address disparities, promote equitable access to resources, and ensure that diverse perspectives and needs are considered to achieve fair and just health outcomes for all. It recognizes the social determinants of health and seeks to empower communities, reduce inequities, and foster a collective commitment to creating a healthier and more equitable society.

Developing Partnerships
Developing partnerships allows for collaborative efforts, shared resources, and diverse perspectives, resulting in more comprehensive and sustainable solutions that address systemic barriers and promote equitable health outcomes.

Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning
Community-engaged learning integrates classroom instruction with real-world experiences, engaging students in community partnerships to address health disparities, promote equitable healthcare access, and foster a critical comprehension of and response to social justice matters within healthcare.

Advocating for Community Engagement
Advocacy empowers individuals and communities to amplify their voices, challenge systemic injustices, and drive transformative change towards equitable access to resources and improved health outcomes for all.

Curricular Innovations in Community-Engaged Learning

The resources that follow focus on how community-engaged learning empowers medical educators, students, and community partners to confront systemic structures fueling inequities and injustices. By actively engaging with communities, we dismantle the foundational barriers that perpetuate these disparities, fostering a path toward equity and justice.

Sex, Bugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll: A Service-Learning Innovation to Enhance Medical Student Knowledge and Comfort with Sexual Health: This initiative successfully enhanced the knowledge and comfort of undergraduate medical students in sexual health. It not only improved medical student understanding but also provided an engaging way to experience sexual health, public health, and social accountability.

The JeffSTARS Advocacy and Community Partnership Elective: A Closer Look at Child Health Advocacy in Action: This elective provided senior medical students and residents with comprehensive training in health advocacy, including social determinants of health, health policy, legislative visits, and collaboration with community agencies. It has gained national recognition as a prominent program in advocacy training.

Women Leading Healthy Change: A Reciprocal Learning Experience for Women in the Sex Trade and Medical Students: Service learning educates medical students on social determinants of health, empowering them to serve and advocate for marginalized populations. This 10-week course with a local organization provided service learning for medical students and peer health education for women in the sex trade, improving knowledge, comfort with healthcare, and leadership skills.

Communicating to Engage: An Improvisational Theater-Based Communication Training Designed to Support Community–Academic Partnership Development: The authors describe a mixed stakeholder training, Communicating to Engage, which aims to bring together researchers and community members to develop communication skills through improvisational theater-based co-learning and potentially build community-based participatory research.

Siamit: A Novel Academic–Tribal Health Partnership in Northwest Alaska: The authors discuss a partnership between Maniilaq Association (a rural and remote tribal health organization in Northwest Alaska), Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School to address health care needs through physician staffing, training, and quality improvement initiatives.

Collaborating With Service Users to Select Psychiatry Residents Committed to Health Equity and Social Justice: The authors report on the first 5 years of a collaboration with service users to select residents to the general adult psychiatry residency program who are committed to working toward health equity and social justice and who bring diverse personal, academic, and community-based experiences.

A Roadmap for Effective Community Engagement in Healthcare: Final report from INSPIRE Phase 1.

INSPIRE (Initiating National Strategies for Partnership, Inclusion, and Real Engagement) is a collaborative and coordinated team of organizations and people with lived experience committed to advancing the practice of authentic community engagement (CE) in the US healthcare system.

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Community Engagement and Collaboration