We sought to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted community-engaged research (CEnR) from both researcher and community partner perspectives, identify challenges and facilitators affecting their experiences, and describe desired supports for CEnR during future health crises.

We conducted semi-structured, virtual interviews with ten researchers and eight partners who conducted or collaborated on CEnR during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. We analyzed the transcribed data thematically through an iterative process involving memoing, consensus coding, and reviewing memos and code reports to identify and describe key categories and themes.

Challenges identified were related to wellbeing and personal circumstances, such as feeling burnt out, managing increased caregiving responsibilities, or concern about risk of illness; institutional barriers, such as inflexible and burdensome financial, regulatory, and administrative policies; and virtual engagement, such as distractions, limited Internet access, or difficulty forming relationships online. Facilitators fell into two categories. Foundational factors such as strong existing partnerships, funding, and project-specific circumstances were critical to facilitating CEnR activities. Strategy-based facilitators focused on overcoming challenges and included communication, flexibility, risk mitigation, and utilizing techniques to enhance virtual engagement. Desired supports included flexible funding, resources for navigating research during crises, and increased virtual engagement accessibility and guidance.

By better understanding challenges and facilitators affecting experiences of researchers and community partners during the COVID-19 pandemic, we can develop strategies and resources to better support CEnR partnerships during future crises.

The urgency and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic demanded a coordinated response from public health agencies and the biomedical research community. The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) was established as a centralized enclave in 2020 to support the study of COVID-19 across the U.S. The Institutional Development Award for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) centers enhanced N3C’s national response by bringing representation from rural and medically underserved communities. This improved the representation of our diverse populations in the N3C Enclave and its use for research by IDeA-state investigators.

We developed an organizational structure across the IDeA-CTRs to improve research productivity in resource-challenged areas of the U.S. This socio-technical ecosystem, informed by community input, included a governance committee and two workstreams. The operations workstream focused on data management and regulatory compliance, while the navigation, education, analysis, and training (NEAT) workstream supported educational and analytical activities for the N3C Enclave.

Our collaborative approach led to participation by 12 IDeA-CTRs, representing over 400 investigators from 23 sites. The shared governance, investigator engagement, and resource pooling enhanced research productivity and engagement with researchers across IDeA states. Participation in this IDeA-CTR N3C consortium enhanced informatics research capacity and collaboration across the IDeA-CTRs for participating networks.

This collaborative model provides a roadmap and framework for future efforts among IDeA-CTRs and other academic partnerships. The socio-technical ecosystem fostered collectivism and team science, enabling the consortium to achieve far more than isolated efforts could, offering valuable insights for interdisciplinary research across geographically dispersed communities.

Complex, knowledge-intensive projects present challenges in terms of defining the work and determining roles. Time pressure makes these challenges more acute. External leadership can provide necessary direction and shape, giving the work a clear focus guiding the team’s efforts. With hackathons and rapid product prototyping more feasible than they ever have been, collaborations that fast-track innovation by drawing together teams of unfamiliar experts are more common than ever.

Drawing on the process perspective on creative action, we seek to understand the generation of new ideas and solutions when teams are working within an extremely brief time frame of one week. The influence of mentors on these interactions has received limited attention. We fill this gap through a study of fifteen case teams who participated in a week-long boot camp where they generated proposals for public health studies, guided by mentors who were experts in the field. The teams’ proposals were evaluated by independent panels, and the evaluations provided metrics for team success.

Our results suggest that even in short-term teams, the timing of mentor interventions is critical to team success.

Hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) are a preventable source of patient harm, contributing to morbidity, mortality, and billions in healthcare costs. Risk assessment tools rely on subjective evaluation and may not accurately capture real-time mobility. Existing technologies have not been widely adopted and have failed to significantly reduce HAPI rates. Our study explores the feasibility of a novel, wireless mattress-attachable motion sensor designed for continuous mobility monitoring in hospitalized patients.

Sensor accuracy was first validated against video analysis in three healthy volunteers. A single-arm prospective cohort study was then conducted in hospitalized patients. A motion sensor was attached to each patient’s bed to continuously record movement. Sensor-derived mobility data were compared with nursing-assessed mobility scores and other patient characteristics. Simulated immobility alerts were generated based on periods of inactivity.

The sensor’s movement detection strongly correlated with video-based analysis in three healthy volunteers (r = 0.89, 95% CI [0.51, 0.99]). Forty-seven patients were enrolled with an average of 9.7 movements/hour and average recording duration of 22.9 hours. No significant differences in age, comorbidities, or nursing mobility scores were observed between high- and low-movement groups. Simulated immobility alerts identified 15 patients who would have triggered a notification, predominantly those with lower movement and BMI.

The sensor system provides objective mobility data and overcomes limitations of current assessment tools. These findings support its potential role in pressure injury prevention and highlight key areas for future clinical integration.

We compared indices for cerebrovascular health (i.e., physiological responses to tilts by measuring regional cerebral oxygenation [rcSO2], cerebrovascular stability, and cerebral fractional tissue oxygen extraction [FTOE]) in infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) versus healthy controls (HC) at neonatal and 3-month ages.

Our cohort study included 101 neonates (52 CHD, 49 HC) and 108 infants at 3-months (45 CHD, 63 HC). We used an innovative and replicable evaluation tool to noninvasively and rapidly measure indices of cerebrovascular health. Changes in near infrared spectroscopy measures of rcSO2 after tilting (from supine to sitting, ∼150 values) assessed cerebrovascular stability. Mixed-effects regression models examined rcSO2 and FTOE differences between groups, and group-by-posture interactions, adjusting for postconceptional age, sex, ethnicity, and preductal systemic oxygenation (SpO2) at both ages.

Infants with CHD had significantly lower rcSO2 (13% at neonatal and 11% at 3-months, both p < 0.001), increased FTOE (∼0.14 points higher at neonatal and ∼ 0.09 points at 3-months, both p < 0.001), and reduced cerebrovascular stability compared with HC at both ages (both p < 0.001).

CHD infants had persistently poorer indices of cerebrovascular health (i.e., lower rcSO2, increased FTOE, and reduced cerebrovascular stability) through the 3-month age compared to controls. Sustained cerebral hypoxia, reduced cerebrovascular stability, and increased FTOE may contribute to neurodevelopmental delays (NDDs) and could serve as early biomarkers for identifying infants at higher risk for NDD.

The Office of Human Research Protections and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) recommend the return of individual research results (IRRs) to study participants as a strategy to build public trust in science. However, the feasibility of sharing IRRs is unclear. Within a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded parent study about Long COVID, we embedded the My ILLInet RECOVER Return of Results study to explore clinician-level considerations (e.g., validity, actionability, recommendations for follow-up) about returning a clinically used biomarker for heart failure (N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide, (NT-proBNP) collected as part of the NIH RECOVER study protocol.

Clinicians participated in a three-phase modified Delphi process that sought their input to guide appropriate follow up recommendations the research team should provide to research participants with an abnormal NT-proBNP.

Clinicians agreed that NT-proBNP results could be returned to study participants. However, consensus was not reached on specific NT-proBNP thresholds that warrant immediate medical attention versus general follow-up.

Lack of clinical context presents a challenge in returning IRRs. Clinicians expressed concerns about the potential harm caused by misinformation or misinterpretation of these findings. While the NASEM report offers guidance on communicating IRRs, careful consideration is essential to ensure that clinical uncertainty is conveyed clearly, minimizing the risk of misinterpretation.

The feasibility of returning IRRs to study participants depends, in part, on sufficient clinical context for the information to be actionable.

External funding is a critical metric in research career advancement, particularly in biomedical fields. Grant-writing coaching emerges as a strategy in biomedical workforce development. Recognizing disparities in grant success among early-career investigators from underrepresented groups, the National Research Mentoring Network Strategic Empowerment Tailored for Health Equity Investigators (NRMN-SETH) provides grant-writing coaching to support these scholars. This study explores the roles of NRMN-SETH grant-writing coaches in fostering technical skills and social support in a group setting.

This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with 16 NIH-funded investigators who served as coaches within the NRMN-SETH program. Data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using the Framework Method, identifying key roles related to coaching practices.

Findings reveal that grant-writing coaching involved personalized guidance, confidence-building, and structured group interactions. Coaches emphasized individualized feedback on grant components and provided iterative guidance. The group-based coaching environment fostered peer support and normalized challenges, creating a collaborative atmosphere conducive to skill-building. Coaches noted the importance of institutional support in enabling participants to engage in the program, though challenges arose in managing participants with varying grant-writing experience.

This study highlights the potential of grant-writing coaching to enhance research capacity among underrepresented scholars, offering a structured, supportive approach that complements traditional mentorship. Integrating tailored coaching programs within biomedical workforce development, particularly at minority-serving and low-resourced institutions, may reduce disparities in grant success. Future research could expand on these findings by investigating the long-term career impacts of coaching and testing the effectiveness of peer-led, group-based components in grant-writing success.

To overcome the dearth of high-quality, evidence-based, role-specific training for community health workers and promotoras (CHW/Ps) working with research teams, we developed and evaluated a peer-led research best practices training for CHW/Ps. This article qualitatively explores the training experiences from the perspectives of CHW/Ps.

CHW/Ps were recruited from communities and partners affiliated with study sites in Michigan, Florida, and California to participate in peer facilitated trainings in English and Spanish. A purposeful sample of CHW/Ps completed interviews from July to December 2023 about their perceptions of the training. Three coders analyzed the interviews using a combination of the rigorous and accelerated data reduction (RADaR) technique and thematic text analysis.

Seventeen CHW/Ps participated in interviews (N = 10 in English; N = 7 in Spanish). The mean age was 43.7 ± 14.5 years, most were female (59%), and 47% identified as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish. We identified three primary themes, each with resulting subthemes: (1) CHW/Ps’ Perceptions of the Training, (2) Factors Influencing Receipt of the Training, and (3) CHW/Ps’ Recommendations for Future Trainings. Despite offering some opportunities for improvement in various areas, CHW/P learners found the training further clarified their role as CHW/Ps, enhanced their knowledge and skills, and provided a beneficial foundation for CHW/Ps working in community-engaged research.

A peer-led research best practices training for CHW/Ps is an effective strategy for enhancing CHW/Ps’ knowledge and skills. Training CHW/Ps in research best practices is a strategy for enhancing the capacity and capability of this community-engaged research workforce