Grant: Project Grant

The different types of impact from community engagement in health services delivery, health research, and other aspects of health have been widely recognized. Studies have shown that community satisfaction increases when policy-makers and healthcare organizations, such as academic health centres, are seen to be willing to engage with communities and are responsive to what they hear. Community involvement can also help address health inequities. However, despite widespread support for community engagement amongst health providers and policy-makers, there is as yet no clear evidence that such engagement actually leads to better health outcomes. Many different factors are involved in health outcomes, from biological and, behavioural to social and environmental. Disentangling their effects is complicated, as we don't have good ways of measuring the contributions each factor makes to the outcomes. Nor do we have a good understanding of the relationship between community engagement and health outcomes. The aim of this project is to evaluate a campus-community partnership model called CityStudio in two cities, Ottawa and Thunder Bay. Using this model, we will launch projects that address community health priorities that have been identified by each city. We will evaluate these projects to determine what contribution community engagement makes to their outcomes, and how it does so. Communities will be involved throughout all of the stages of implementation and evaluation.