The Community Research Liaison Model: Facilitating community-engaged research

The Community Research Liaison Model (CRLM) is a novel model to facilitate community-engaged research (CEnR) and community–academic research partnerships focused on health priorities identified by the community. This model, informed by the Principles of Community Engagement, builds trust among rural communities and expands capacity for community and investigator-initiated research. We describe the CRLM development process and how it is operationalized today. We followed a multi-phase process to design and implement a community engagement model that could be replicated. The resulting CRLM moves community–academic research collaborations from objectives to outputs using a conceptual framework that specifies our guiding principles, objectives, and actions to facilitate the objectives (i.e., capacity, motivations, and partners), and outputs. The CRLM has been fully implemented across Oregon. Six Community Research Liaisons collectively support 18 predominantly rural Oregon counties. Since 2017, the liaison team has engaged with communities on nearly 300 community projects. The CRLM has been successful in facilitating CEnR and community–academic research partnerships. The model has always existed on a dynamic foundation and continues to be responsive to the lessons learned by the community and researchers. The model is expanding across Oregon as an equitable approach to addressing health disparities across the state.