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Clinical and Translational Science Awards and Community Engagement: Now Is the Time to Mainstream Prevention into the Nation's Health Research Agenda

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Abstract

Although much attention is devoted to the slow process of cutting-edge “bench science” finding its way to clinical translation, less attention is paid to the fact that basic prevention messages, tests, and interventions never find their way into communities. The NIH Clinical & Translational Science Awards program seeks to address a broad mission of improving health, including both speeding up the incorporation of basic science discoveries throughout the clinical research pipeline and incorporating concerns of communities and practices into research agendas. The preventive medicine community now has an important opportunity to marry their mission of promoting and expanding prevention in communities to the nation's medical research agenda. This article suggests opportunities for collaboration.

Section snippets

Background: A Legacy of Community Engagement

Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, departments of community medicine took root and started growing within medical schools. Primarily focused on assisting communities in improving their overall health, these new departments expanded and established links with physicians, nurses, and groups of citizens who were committed to improving the health of their communities. From underserved communities in Appalachia to those in Harlem, these departments flourished.

In the 1970s and 1980s, new departments

The CTSA Program

That relationship is now changing. To ensure that federally funded basic science discoveries and clinical scientist training opportunities result in overall population health improvement, the NIH formed the CTSA program. The CTSA program seeks to address a broad mission of improving health, including both speeding up the incorporation of basic science discoveries throughout the clinical research pipeline and incorporating concerns of communities and practices into research agendas.9

Sponsored by

Opportunities for Collaboration

The CTSA program does not directly fund the classic NIH hypothesis-driven, investigator-initiated research. Rather, it is a funding mechanism that seeks to build infrastructure and nurture long-term, ongoing connections and transform how academic health centers conduct research. To that end, what are some of the ways that the prevention community can and should immediately link with CTSA efforts?

The first question that would benefit from the input of preventive medicine is how to frame and

Conclusion

Admittedly, these proposed collaborations are no easy feat. Funding challenges are squeezing every institution's time and money. Public health and medicine have a long and colorful history of cultural differences. But perhaps most important, the public is traditionally more fascinated by cutting-edge technical innovation that addresses disease after the fact than it is in disseminating what is already known about disease prevention and health promotion. Legislators reflect this public

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Copyright © 2009 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.