The Community Empowered Research Training (CERT) program at NYU Langone is a collaborative effort of the Community Engagement and Population Health Research program in our Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the NYU-CUNY Prevention Research Center, and the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH).

About Community Empowered Research Training

The CERT program is an academic–community partnership dedicated to strengthening community leadership in research. Geared toward executive directors and program directors and managers, our program offers free workshops and webinars to strengthen the capacity of community-based organizations to participate in and develop community-focused research initiatives.

CSAAH engaged with our National Advisory Committee on Research Development during a series of retreats and workgroups that culminated in the development of the CERT program in 2010. This collaboration helped to focus the CERT trainings toward building research capacity and engagement of community leaders and providers. The National Advisory Committee is a formal advisory body comprising both national and local community partners in the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) population across the country. It guides development of CSAAH’s strategic and action plans, with emphasis on relevance, reach, and coordination, and is co-led with our partners at the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF).

Our Overall Goal and Objectives

Our overall goal is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the field of research and community health by encouraging community-based organizations to engage in research as a means to eliminating health disparities and contributing to the national dialogue on community health.

There are three main objectives of the CERT program:

• increasing awareness of community-based organizations’ role in research to affect change at the community level
• building recognition of the importance of community-based knowledge and research in adding to the national dialogue on racial and ethnic health disparities
• increasing the number of community-based organizations that engage in research initiatives

Workshops and Webinars

Past workshops and webinars have focused on a wide range of topics: conducting research for nonprofits, the role and importance of research from the perspective of grant makers, research methodology and design, techniques for sustaining community health programs and initiatives, data analysis to inform policy and practices, program evaluation, and how to write grant-winning proposals.

We are also partnered with APIAHF, who is providing consultation to culturally adapt a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)–developed infection prevention and control training initiative to support the AANHPI healthcare workforce, which includes frontline nurses, community health workers, and related care providers. The goal of Project Firstline is to strengthen the national healthcare workforce on infection prevention and control topics in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Our Academic and Community Partners

The following partners collaborated to help create and sustain our first few cycles of CERT curricula:

• APIAHF
• Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations
• B Free National Center of Excellence of Hepatitis B Disparities
• CSAAH
• Charles B. Wang Community Health Center
• National Advisory Committee on Research Development
• NYU-CUNY Prevention Research Center
• NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute
• NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

Contact Us

For more information about the CERT program, please contact Janet Pan, MPH, senior program coordinator, at janet.pan@nyulangone.org, or Jennifer Wong, MPH, senior program coordinator, at jennifer.wong@nyulangone.org.