Boards and Councils
In order to effectively hear the voice of the communities we serve, members of the Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA) participate in the Olmsted County Community Healthcare Access Collaborative, a community-led coalition of service providers to the community. CTSA is closely linked with the Community Engagement Committee at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., which coordinates community efforts at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Mayo Clinic seeks to ensure that communities do not feel that they must participate in research simply to receive services — a major ethical concern in community-engaged research. The CTSA works with the Community Healthcare Access Collaborative to lessen that perception, determine what health concerns exist in our community, and find ways to truly partner and collaborate to improve health outcomes and eliminate health disparities.
Community Advisory Board
The Community Advisory Board (CAB) was formed in 2012. The mission of the board is to assist the Mayo Clinic CTSA in ensuring that community-engaged and community-placed research at Mayo Clinic is of high quality, respects community values and benefits community members.
- Community-placed research is research conducted in an organized community setting outside of Mayo Clinic. It involves a one-time or short-term relationship between the researcher and the community. Community involvement is limited, and often community organizations are used only to help recruit volunteers.
- Community-engaged research is research that involves a partnership with a community organization outside of Mayo Clinic. The partners decide how the research will be conducted and how the results will be communicated to benefit everyone involved.
The board's charge:
- Review and advise Mayo Clinic researchers on community-engaged and community-placed research
- Represent community needs in the community-engaged and community-placed research process
- Work and communicate with groups, organizations, advisory boards, individuals and stakeholders in the community (community members) to understand and identify community priorities
- Help identify community members who could partner with Mayo Clinic researchers to perform community-engaged or community-placed research
- Increase awareness for the role that research can play in solving community needs
Olmsted County Community Healthcare Access Collaborative
The Olmsted County Community Health Care Access Collaborative (CHAC) is a community-based multicultural volunteer coalition of more than 20 health care-related service providers composed of medical, public health, social service and other organizations from the government, private, not-for-profit and community sectors.
Its members are a diverse representation of racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religious and other groups that make up our community.
The CHAC works to identify and address significant issues of community health and care of the people in Olmsted County. It serves as the primary means by which we identify and work to address community needs. The CHAC emphasizes the needs of diverse and under-resourced populations through defining priority projects around which member organizations partner to solve community health care needs.
The CHAC Community Advisory Board assists the CHAC with:
- Setting the priorities for health improvement projects to be pursued
- Reviewing and providing input to collaborative projects among Olmsted County health service providers as they are developed
- Facilitating communication between this collaborative of providers and the community as the projects are carried out
Community Engagement Committee at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The Community Engagement Committee is an institutional oversight committee charged with managing the overall community engagement strategy and guiding principles that serve as the framework for Mayo Clinic corporate social responsibility and meet the needs of the community and Mayo Clinic.
Committee responsibilities include coordinating community engagement efforts of Mayo Clinic's research, education, practice and public affairs components, and facilitating smooth interface with the community.
The committee is composed of members from both the community and Mayo Clinic and is led by Paul V. Targonski, M.D., Ph.D.
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