Page 26 - Demo

Extraordinary People |
Community Engagement Conference celebrates
five-years of NIH-funded programs
Christiana Care and its research partners discussed the successful conclusion of a $25 million five-year effort to grow clinical and translational research in Delaware, and discussed the likely renewal of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding at a March 12 Community Engagement Conference at the University of Delaware’s Clayton Hall.
Federal peer reviewers overseeing the Delaware renewal application scored it in the outstanding range in early March, which is “good news,” said Stuart Binder- Macleod, PT, Ph.D., FAPTA, principal investigator and program director of Delaware-CTR.
Binder-Macleod said once an NIH budget is
& Community Medicine and lead of the Community Engagement and Outreach Core of Delaware ACCEL. “NIH-funded investigators from other states have been asking how to duplicate our success.”
The March 12 Community Research Exchange drew 275 registered attendees interested in how ACCEL investigators
on the Evaluation Core of ACCEL, during the five-year-duration of the award:
• Nearly700individualsattendedannual community-engagement conferences, including 145 from Christiana Care.
• 213publicationswerecited.
• $4.9millioningrantswereawarded.
approved there is a strong possibility that the project to accelerate Delaware’s clinical and translational research (Delaware-CTR ACCEL) — with financial backing from NIH, the state of Delaware and research partners — will be renewed.
Under ACCEL, Christiana Care and partners Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children, the University of Delaware and the Medical University of South Carolina are building research infrastructure and initiating research that matches the health priorities of communities in Delaware and South Carolina.
“Our community engagement has been a vibrant element of ACCEL,” said Heather Bittner Fagan, M.D.,
MPH, associate vice chair
for research in Family
Heather Bittner Fagan,
M.D., MPH, told conference attendees that other “NIH- funded investigators from other states have been asking how to duplicate our success.”
are collaborating with community leaders to translate basic science into improved health outcomes for Delawareans. A social network map of research relationships fostered through ACCEL shows a rich
and growing connection of ties among the nearly 900 registered users of the ACCEL website.
According to Jennifer Passarella, MBA, program manager of the Community Engagement and Outreach Core, who also serves
Jennifer Passarella, MBA, reported on the high level of participation and achievement over the past five years.
“Our community engagement has been a vibrant element
of ACCEL. NIH-funded investigators from other states have been asking how to duplicate our success.”
Heather Bittner Fagan, M.D., MPH
24 CHRISTIANA CARE HEALTH SYSTEM