The fourth and final RADx-UP COVID-19 Equity Evidence Academy brought together RADx-UP research teams, CDCC staff, community partners, NIH leaders, and others to share their experiences, ideas, and recommendations to overcome disparities in COVID-19 testing.
This year's Evidence Academy agenda highlighted speakers and sessions focused on building community-academic connections; enhancing knowledge of promising approaches and lessons learned in engaging communities in COVID-19 testing and vaccines; and collaborating with RADx-UP project team members and other partners to identify strategies for translating lessons learned and promising approaches into sustainable practices and policies.
“We hope that people will take the learnings from this year’s event and all previous Evidence Academies to advance health equity research and practice in COVID-19 and beyond," said Lori Carter-Edwards, Evidence Academy Faculty Lead and Associate Dean for Community Engagement and Government Affairs at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.
Day one of the event included a keynote address from Debra Fraser-Howze, founder of Choose Healthy Life. Four projects presented their findings. Eliseo Perez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, closed the first day of the event, emphasizing the crucial role of mutual trust among communities and researchers in reducing health disparities.
Day two began with a keynote address from David Chambers, deputy director for implementation science in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), National Cancer Institute, before attendees collaborated in small groups in a consensus building workshop regarding community-engaged strategies to advance health equity research and practice.
The Evidence Academy Data Profile, available in English and Spanish, highlights RADx-UP results in community engagement strategies for COVID-19 testing and interviews with RADx-UP project teams.
Evidence Academy attendees are encouraged to complete a brief survey on the experience of attending the conference.
They are also encouraged to log back into the event platform to:
- Watch recorded sessions and access presentation slide decks of presenters.
- Check out the Advancing Community-Academic Partnerships (ACAP) Poster Booths to see what several RADx-UP projects have been working on recently.
- Browse participant and presenter profiles to connect with others.
- Review report out-outs of ideas generated from Evidence Academy’s Day 2 interactive Consensus Building Workshop
