Community Engagement Core

PROJECT SUMMARY (COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE) The University of Southern California (USC) CLIMAte-Related Exposures, Adaptation, and Health Equity (CLIMA) Center’s Community Engagement Core (CEC) will increase the capacity of intergenerational residents from historically marginalized communities across all ages to engage in climate resiliency efforts. This will be

achieved by expanding community-academic partnerships, advancing a climate justice framework, integrating neighborhood-level exposures (Methods Development Research Core, MDRC) and cardiovascular health and resilience measures (two Research Projects) into dissemination activities, and developing partnerships

necessary to create an actionable community climate and health equity plans. The CEC will leverage community- engaged and participatory strategies to advance research and understanding around the needs of communities to address climate equity and implement a program to increase community power through increasing knowledge,

advancing local solutions, and improving dissemination of climate change research. The CEC will be guided by the following aims: (1) facilitate an intergenerational and multi-directional communication structure that fosters interaction, shares the Center’s research findings and engagement models with local/regional/national

audiences, and increases Center’s investigators’ understanding of community concerns, with guidance from our community advisors; (2) build capacity of youth and residents of all ages from environmental health disparity populations to respond to the climate crisis and associated health burdens and to address those burdens through

community science and public policy; (3) disseminate CLIMA Center research findings to local/national audiences by utilizing innovative communication methods, tailoring print, audio, and web-based materials and resources for intended audiences and amplifying our reach through strategic social media communication efforts;

and (4) evaluate the success of CEC activities using several key benchmarks, including (a) engagement of residents and community-based organizations; (b) youth fellows’ professional trajectories; (c) communication and dissemination metrics and (d) CEC integration with Center investigators.