Alliance for Research in Chicago Communities

ARCC enjoyed hosting the visiting teams from the University of North Carolina and Vanderbilt capacity for an over-capacity workshop on Wednesday where they shared their models of community feedback and review. Click to access workshop materials. On Thursday, our visiting colleagues and ARCC staff toured the Refugee Urban Farm (pictured above) established by ARCC Steering Committee Member, Coalition of Limited English Speaking Elderly. Click to learn about the Farm.

ARCC is guided by a steering committee of community- and faith -based organizations from across the city as well as faculty at Northwestern University. We support Community-Based Participatory Research

(CBPR) by providing seed grants, capacity-building workshops and one-on-one technical assistance, partnership facilitation, monthly information and resource updates, advocacy for supportive institutional policies, and other activities.

Community-based participatory research core principles include:

Community priorities: Research addresses priorities identified by communities and brings together knowledge and expertise of community organizations and members with knowledge and expertise of academic partners and the larger scientific community.
Equal partnership: Community and academic partners participate in all phases or research and share resources associated with the project.
Action: A key outcome of this approach to research is the ability to make data-driven decisions about policies and issues that affect communities.

The ARCC Steering Committee is comprised of 11 community-and faith-based organizations, 2 public agencies and 7 Northwestern University faculty: Apostolic Faith Church, Asian Health Coalition, Centro Romero, Chicago Youth Programs, Chinese Mutual Aid Association, Coalition of Limited English Speaking Elderly, Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness, Healthcare Consortium of Illinois, Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Roberto Clemente Wildcats Student Health Center, Westside Health Authority, Chicago Department of Public Health, Chicago Public Schools, Rebecca Ford-Paz, PhD, Ruchi Gupta, MD MPH, Bill Healey, PT, Ed D, GCS, Darby Morhardt MSW LCSW, Melissa Simon MD MPH, Karen Sheehan, MD, MPH, David Victorson, PhD

Contact us for more information:

Director: Jen Brown, MPH, 312-503-2942, jenbrown@northwestern.edu

Faculty-Community Research Liaison: Maryann Mason, PhD, 312-573-7771, mmason@luriechildrens.org

Director of ARCC Community Relations: Virginia Bishop, MD, MPH, 312-375-0390, vbishop@northwestern.edu

Community-Campus Coordinator: Gina Curry, 312-363-8050, g-curry@northwestern.edu

Community-Campus Coordinator: Josefina Serrato, 312-927-6037, josefina-serrato@northwestern.edu

ARCC is a program of the Community-Engaged Research Center, Northwestern University Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute.