Page 25 - msmannualreport_3_14_17

The Office of Community Engagement successful annual MSM Community Engagement Day. The event offered
community members full access to offerings such as health screenings, fitness
Commitment to its own mission, the overarching MSM mission and vision, demonstrations, flu shots, workshops and healthy foods. Community
and a strategic goal to collaborate with the community even more closely, led Engagement Day, was created to flip the script and have a celebration of the
to MSM established The Office of Community Engagement in 2016. Led by Dr. partnerships and people working together to promote healthy communities
Henry Akintobi, the Office builds upon previous institutional-wide approaches on MSM’s campus. It celebrates the partnerships and collaborations to engage
led by Daniel S. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.H., Professor and Chair Emeritus, communities, where they live, work, and lead year-round. This year’s approach
Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine and Associate Dean specifically sought to highlight the interconnectedness of all things to health.
of Community Engagement and Founding Principal Investigator of the PRC. These variables are often called social determinants. These factors may include,
The Office is designed, in part, to ensure the centralization of new and existing the more obvious, like socioeconomic status and the ability to have quality
community engaged initiatives and their alignment with MSM’s Strategic Plan access the health system, to the more systemic, including the political will that
2015-2020. impacts why some communities have sidewalks or access to reasonably priced
healthy foods or food desserts. These factors are just a few in a myriad of barriers
The Office of Community Engagement’s FY16 strategies included development or facilitators to optimal health. They must be addressed through strategic
of an inventory and web portal detailing the depth and breadth of communi- partnerships that work together to advance health equity.
ty-engaged initiatives, institution-wide. The Office will focus on ensuring that
all institutional engagement with communities sustain critical internal and “Underserved communities and their disparities should be important to all of
external linkages as they collaborate on creating health equity in underserved us,” said Dr. Henry Akintobi. “Addressing their needs in a community-engaged
communities. way that makes sense, not only impacts them in a positive way, but means im-
proved health for our nation, overall.”

The Office will also have deep involvement in supporting and galvanizing
institutional departments, centers and institutes in the overwhelmingly

Prevention Research Center Funded Initiatives

and Collaborations:

l Prevention Research Center Core Research Project: HIV/AIDS Prevention
Program for Youth (HAPPY)

l The Partnerships to Improve Community Health (PICH) Evaluation in
Collaboration with Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness

l Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)

l The Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Community
Engagement Research Program (CERP)