Center for Community Engagement and Research

The Center for Community Engagement and Research (CCER) aims to develop the capacity of community members and organizations to conduct research and to help researchers develop the knowledge and skills to work with community partners in a way that meets the needs of all parties.

The Mission

The CCER's mission is to engage, mentor, and foster relationships with community representatives in order to meaningfully participate in community-involved research. Through the work of CCER we aim to develop intellectual partners and potential participants in research. Dr. Brenner brings experience fostering community participation in research, including long-term community – academic research partnerships, and in culturally competent translation of research results to communities. Dr. Horowitz has extensive experience in creating community-based participatory research models and health disparities research particularly pertaining to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and chronic diseases.

The Vision

This process is a core element of any research effort involving communities. It requires academic and community members to learn from and collaborate with each other across the research continuum — selecting the research questions, designing studies and methods, evaluating results, and communication of translation of results back to communities and into changes in health behaviors, practices, and policies.