Virtual engagement of under-resourced communities: Lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic for creating crisis-resistant research infrastructure

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased need to conduct research and community engagement using digital methods. Unfortunately, the shift away from in-person research activities can make it difficult to engage and recruit participants from under-resourced communities that lack adequate digital inf...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical and translational science 2022, Vol.6 (1), p.e44-e44, Article e44
Main Authors: Plunk, Andrew D, Carver, Alexandra, Minggia, Charles, Prasanna, Kassandra, Sheehan, Brynn E, Herman, Matthew, Burwell, Cynthia B, Moeller, F Gerard, Krist, Alex H, McQueen-Gibson, Ethlyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Community
community advisory board
Community engagement
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
digital inclusion
digital methods
Housing
Low income groups
Mixed methods research
Pandemics
Public housing
Research Methods and Technology
Special Communications
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Summary:The COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased need to conduct research and community engagement using digital methods. Unfortunately, the shift away from in-person research activities can make it difficult to engage and recruit participants from under-resourced communities that lack adequate digital infrastructure. At the beginning of the pandemic, our team recognized that imminent lockdowns would significantly disrupt ongoing engagement with low-income housing resident community partners and that we would ultimately bear responsibility if that occurred. This manuscript outlines the development of methods designed to create capacity for virtual engagement with a community advisory board that were subsequently applied to a longitudinal mixed-methods study. We describe how our experience engaging low-income housing residents during the height of the pandemic influenced the approach and offer guidelines useful for engaging under-resourced communities regardless of setting. Of these, a strong commitment to providing technology, unlimited data connectivity, and basic digital literacy training/technical support is most important. While each of these is essential and failure in any one area will reduce overall effectiveness of the effort, providing adequate technical support while maintaining ongoing relationships with community members is the most important and resource-intensive.
ISSN:2059-8661
2059-8661
DOI:10.1017/cts.2022.385