Community Engagement, Antiracist Strategies focus of new Master's in Clinical Investigation Courses

A new elective course in the NUCATS Institute's Master of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) program explores the role of community engagement in clinical investigation, including its merits and challenges. Students are exposed to the history and principles of community-engaged research, including the philosophical orientations that underlie the field, such as critical consciousness and feminism, its various manifestations as participatory/action research, its application through an array of community-based participatory methods, and its delivery through community-academic partnerships. 

The course is led by Community Course Co-Director Pedro Serrano, MPH, CPH, a public health practitioner-scholar with the Department of Research at the CORE Center of Cook County Health; and Academic Course Co-Director Gregory Phillips II, PhD, MS, assistant professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences and founder of the research program in Evaluation, Data Integration, and Technical Assistance. 

The launch of the MSCI Community Engagement course follows on the heels of a second successful year of "Antiracist Strategies for Clinical and Translational Research." The new core MSCI class provides an overview of how anti-Black racism can be perpetuated in clinical research, how to spot these patterns, and how students can actively address them as they conduct research projects. The course is led by Nia Heard-Garris, MD, MSc, and Susanna McColley, MD.