Community Based Research

The CCHERS Board of Directors has committed to build on the success of its twenty years of forging community/academic partnerships for the further development of its model of “academic community health centers”. The fifteen community health center partners in CCHERS are recognized as a “primary care practice based research network” by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The focus is on developing community derived and directed health services and clinical research to impact persistent racial and ethnic health disparities among their diverse urban populations. The community based participatory research model is preferred as having the greatest potential for improving the quality of research being conducted, increasing community research capacity and enhancing health outcomes.(1)

(1)Viswanathan, Ammerman, Eng, et al. Community-Based Participatory Research: Assessing the Evidence, Evidence Report/Technology Assessment No. 99, RTI-University of North Carolina, Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, July 2004.