Community-academic partnerships can address questions that uniquely impact community members. Each partner brings specific expertise and skills that are necessary in developing approaches and interventions to solve complicated biomedical and psychosocial problems in a manner that is culturally appropriate and sensitive.

Cheryl Gore-Felton, Ph.D.

As those in academia learn from and respect the intrinsic knowledge, voice, and experience of those in the community, the strengths of all are brought together to create elegant solutions.

Steven Adelsheim, M.D.

Community-academic partnerships ground academicians to the real world and open the community to the struggles of research.

Michele Barry, M.D.

In order for academic work (e.g., research, program development) to create impact, the work needs to be significant, feasible, and sustainable. Community-academic partnerships engage stakeholders in this process. This relationship safeguards that these components are addressed during design, implementation, and evaluation of an intervention or program.

Victor G. Carrion, M.D.

Growing up in a Christian church, I was taught that “faith without works is dead.” In my university career, I have learned that “scholarship without service is dead.” Mental health is not physics: We are rarely discovering how an electron works or some other bit of basic knowledge. Instead, we strive to acquire knowledge in the service of society. That by definition means engaging society at all levels.

Keith Humphreys, Ph.D.

Research and academic training that are not rooted in community needs, values, and priorities are doomed to failure. Transcendent collaborations that uniquely synthesize scientific and programmatic expertise increase the likelihood of developing an intervention or program that is scientifically efficacious, programmatically valid, and responsive to community needs, values, and priorities.

David Wyatt Seal, Ph.D.

It is important to me because the university setting is often full of researchers and clinicians who want to help the community and who may have burning questions for which the community may have some answers (and more questions). Hence, a dialogue can start, and a mutually beneficial relationship can be created and sustained. Also, I think it’s particularly salient when you live in the community where you work…you become part of the landscape and the research questions become more natural and obvious.

Shashank V. Joshi, M.D.

Academic endeavors must ultimately provide some benefit, whether direct or indirect, to the general population and, sometimes, to specific communities. Partnering with these communities will enrich the nature of the academic inquiry and lead to more robust applications.

Yvonne Aida Maldonado, M.D.

I have had a rewarding, synergistic experience between my professional work—in which I try to serve my profession in its desire to provide greater understanding and better treatment of the mental health needs of LGBT patients—while serving my gay community as an occasional spokesperson to the wider world in support of their civil rights, health, and mental health needs.

Jack Drescher, M.D.

As a vice chairman for education and director of a forensic psychiatry fellowship, I tremendously value the ability to expose learners at all stages of medical education to patients and clinical problems in the real world. Community engagement with the corrections system, public hospitals, the Veterans Affairs medical center system, and universities where student mental health services are provided all give opportunities to medical students, residents, and fellows to prepare for careers serving patients in the environments where they receive care in the community.

Joseph B. Layde, M.D., J.D.

The connection between methamphetamine use disorders and HIV/AIDS has been well documented in the literature. Scientists at major academic centers have utilized fMRI, brain tissue analysis from autopsies, neuropsychological testing, and a variety of other scientific approaches to understand addiction and the effects of methamphetamine in those with and without HIV/AIDS. Communities, however, see methamphetamine causing friends and loved ones to participate in unsafe sex, commit crime, become homeless, and in some cases, develop recurring psychosis and debilitating depression.

I see the marriage of academia and community as a critical link between the abstract and the concrete. This union provides a venue where fMRI results are understood in the context of community observations, such as why a college student would decide not to use a condom when under the influence of methamphetamine. The observations of the local bathhouse employee are given as much cachet as a research scientist. The community learns from academia and vice versa.

Lawrence McGlynn, M.D.

Community-academic partnerships provide community leaders with an approach to help shape research that addresses their community’s needs. Community-academic partnerships can facilitate the implementation of research by drawing upon the community partners’ extensive knowledge of their community and building upon their already well-established relationships within it.