Call for Manuscripts

Themed Issue on Institutional Transformation to Support Community Based Participatory Research and Patient- and Community -Engaged Research

We are issuing this Call for Papers for a special themed issue of the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, which will focus on institutional transformation to support community based participatory research (CBPR) and patient- and community-engaged research.

Recent growth in community based participatory research (CBPR) and patient- and community-engaged research have led to widespread adoption of participatory principles within collaborative research projects, spanning from outreach and community consultation to shared leadership and community-led projects. The recognition that translational science benefits from community and patient engagement, from developing innovative approaches to disseminating findings, has increased adoption of engagement models and metrics to evaluate and strengthen partnering. With this maturation has also come a recognition that individual projects are insufficient; that long-standing institutional structures, from policies on payment to community partners to rules on who can serve as research leaders, are significant barriers; and that a deeper transformation is needed to support patient and community empowerment and decision-making in research. The inadequacy of institutional support has resulted in continued patient and community distrust of research, producing a pervasive lack of institutional trustworthiness.   

As an example to confront these challenges, the national Engage for Equity PLUS initiative, working with three Academic Health Centers (AHCs), has promoted strategies to assess barriers and support institutional changes in research infrastructures. This call for papers asks for empirical research and evidence of evaluation of system-change efforts, from Engage for Equity PLUS and from other initiatives within AHCs, Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and other Clinical and Research units. Careful evaluation of these initiatives for different stages of the translational spectrum is important to learn how to best confront barriers to implementation of sustainable equity-based research infrastructures that can build trust with research participants and their communities. These issues have become even more pronounced during COVID, with the increased recognition that structural racism and systemic inequitable conditions have contributed to disproportionate disease outcomes for minority and other underserved communities. We therefore invite articles that articulate evidence and promote further research on ongoing gaps and challenges as well as specific solutions to further advance the field of translational science. All articles will be peer reviewed.

Manuscripts should be written for a broad target audience of all clinical and translational researchers, as well as for their research partners. We invite a wide range of papers across each stage of clinical and translational science. Manuscripts that represent a concerted initiative with community partners will be prioritized. The areas of particular interest for this thematic include but are not limited to:

• Development and use of quantitative or qualitative tools/metrics to evaluate institutional contexts and/or evidence of transformation.
• Documentation of contextual barriers and facilitators to institutional transformation for community and patient empowerment to participate in and/or lead research.
• Original research and case studies that evaluate interventions or strategies to inform generalizable methods that can transform Academic Health Center research Infrastructures, policies, norms, and practices.
• Community perspectives on their own research capacity and roles for research decision-making when working with academic health centers or other research institutes.
• Other comparable ideas.

As part of the themed issue, an editorial will be developed by the guest editors. Accepted articles will be published online ahead of being compiled on our Thematic Issues page.

Submissions should be made online via the Journal’s ScholarOne submission site by June 30, 2024. Authors are asked to select, “Institutional Transformation to Support CBPR and Patient/Community Engaged Research” for the Themed Issue submission question when submitting to this issue.

Manuscripts may be submitted for peer review in any of the Journal’s article types except Editorial. For a full description of each manuscript category, as well as information on the submission of manuscripts, journal policy, and journal style, please visit the JCTS Instructions for Contributors on Cambridge Core. JCTS is a fully Gold Open Access journal. Information about the Journal’s Open Access policies, including the current Article Processing Charge (APC), can be found here. Standard APCs will apply for themed issue submissions unless other arrangements have been made in advance with the publisher.

Questions regarding this themed issue should be directed to the Guest Co-Editors listed below via the JCTS Editorial Office at jcts@cambridge.org.

Guest Editors:

Nina Wallerstein, DrPH, Distinguished Professor, College of Population Health, Director, Center for Participatory Research, University of New Mexico

Lori Carter-Edwards, PhD, Associate Dean for Community Engagement and Government Affairs, Professor, Health Systems Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine

Lloyd Michener, MD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Family Medicine & Community Health, Duke School of Medicine; Adjunct Professor, Public Health Leadership, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Paige Castro-Reyes, Deputy Director, Community Campus Partnerships for Health (community partner)

Linda Sprague Martinez, PhD, Professor, Department of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Connecticut School of Medicine

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine, Director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities (CRHD), U.C. Davis

Tanja Gangarova, German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), Berlin, Germany (community partner)