Support for Center Members

What is the CEC?

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) requires its Core Centers to have Community Engagement Cores (CECs) to “communicate environmental health research findings and concepts to community partners and convey the voice of these communities to researchers within the center. In so doing, CECs increase awareness of environmental health and help researchers understand which environmental health issues are important to their identified audiences.”

The Community Engagement Core supports multi-directional communication:

• We help make sure that your work reaches the people who need to know about it – policy makers, community members, health care providers and others. We help identify audiences for your research and the best way to communicate your work.
• We identify public health concerns, issues, and decisions to inform future environmental health research, by developing and sustaining partnerships.

Contact the CEC Team

How can Center Members and the CEC work together?

• Community Advisory Board meetings: The Community Advisory Board meets twice a year; Center Members are encouraged to attend. The Community Advisory Board can help researchers learn about local exposures, diseases, or populations with environmental health concerns; opportunities to work with local data, populations, or problems; get feedback on research ideas; and provide feedback on issues of local concern.
• The EHSC newsletter: Our newsletter, “Your Health & the Environment,” features short articles on EHSC researchers, environmental health issues of interest to the community, students, and other Center stakeholders. Research summaries that we develop for the EHSC newsletter may be useful communication tools for your web site, grant proposals, or presentations.
• Research significance and grant proposals: Many grant proposals require a section that describes the health, policy, or community relevance of the proposed research. We can help make the case for how your research plans are significant to protecting human health. We can also assist you with applying for pilot project grants that involve community engagement.
• Connecting with community, government, health interest, education, or environmental groups: We can identify opportunities for you and your graduate students to present research summaries to community groups and other organizations as well as help prepare presentations for these non-research audiences (e.g., grand rounds, health interest groups, local, state, or national groups, etc.). We can assist with presenting your work to the media and promoting your work on our social media page.
• Communicating your research results to broader audiences: We can help you communicate your research to individual participants, interested community groups, or the general public. CEC team members have expertise in reporting back research results (for one example, see the ROC HOME study), preparing community presentations, and public communications.
• Personalized support: Tell us if you have a new research finding, idea, or question that provides an opportunity to communicate, translate, apply or get input on your research from non-researchers! The CEC team meets regularly with individual researchers to develop personalized engagement plans. Reach out anytime to schedule a meeting!
• Tracking your engagement: We document community engagement by Center researchers, even if the CEC is not directly involved. Between 2020 and 2024, 83% of EHSC members reported one or more engagement activities. We aim to maintain that level of engagement and need your help tracking what you do. Let us know if you:
  • Speak to a reporter
  • Give a talk to a non-research audience (including clinicians, students, or a community group)
  • Comment on policy
  • Work with an interest group
  • And more!

Learn about ongoing CEC partnerships and projects

Visit our Projects and Partnerships page to learn about current and past CEC projects and partnerships with EHSC researchers and community groups.

Read about Community Environmental Health Priorities

In 2024, we surveyed our Community Advisory Board about the community’s environmental health priorities. Visit our Priorities page to learn about key environmental health issues for the City of Rochester and the Finger Lakes Region.

Additional resources

In addition to the CEC, the EHSC offers many services and resources to support your work. We work closely with the Translational Research Support Group (TRSC) to help investigators design and conduct research across the translational research spectrum. Learn more about the EHSC and TRSC.

The UR Clinical & Translational Science Institute and Center for Community Health & Prevention provide additional support for researchers, including:

• Community-Based Participatory Research Training
• Project-specific input from stakeholders via Community Engagement Studios