The ComPASS program aims to empower community organizations to take ownership of their own health challenges and solutions. ComPASS is an NIH program that directly funds community organizations to create and test interventions. The goal of the interventions is to address health disparities and advance health equity among the populations served by the community organizations.
Academic researchers work together with community organizations to support their research goals and co-design community-led interventions to address social determinants of health that have an adverse impact on people’s health, well-being, and quality of life. ComPASS also aims to provide resources for community organizations and relevant partners to enhance their ability to sustain their intervention over time and compete for future research funding.
Stage(s) of Research Process
- Study Planning: Community organizations lead efforts to identify and design interventions, and work together with researchers to create and test their intervention.
- Study Conduct: Community organizations lead study recruitment, deliver the intervention, and check to see if the intervention successfully reduced health disparities.
- Post-Study: Results from the research studies must be discussed in both academic and community settings. Community organizations are responsible for identifying new and interesting ways to share intervention results with their communities.
Who Might Benefit
- Community Organizations
- Will benefitfrom theresources available on the ComPASS website. These resources include guidance documents, trainings, webinars, workshops, consultative services, and publications. This information will be valuable in helping community organizations understand how research works and provide strategies for working together with academic researchers and other community partners.
- Will benefit from the results of the 25 community organizations who received money from the ComPASS program. These 25 organizations will be able to share their experience to empower other communities and organizations to take leadership over addressing and improving health among the populations that they serve.
- Researchers may find the ComPASS community listening sessions (held prior to program launch) useful for understanding community needs and ways to improve the perception of research and researchers. This may lead to additional focus on research co-design moving forward.
Key Takeaways and Examples in Practice:
- Health interventions do not work for long if they do not include resources for the community to continue using the intervention in the future.
- The current status quo values the voice of the researcher more than community voices, and ComPASS was designed to change that.
- NIH used community members’ opinions and ideas when designing the ComPASS program.
- Community organizations can find it difficult to apply for NIH funding. ComPASS provides resources for community organizations to be more prepared to apply for and receive NIH funding.
- ComPASS stimulated community-led research at NIH, transforming health equity research and advancing health for all.
This work was done with the direct support by each of the following partners who advance this work:
- ComPASS NIH Working Group
- ComPASS Awardees and Their Research and Community Partners
Keywords: Methods of Engagement; Collaborative Decision-Making; Equitable Engagement; Sustainable Engagement & Capacity Building; Return of Research Value; Communities; Researchers
Links to Relevant Resources:
- NIH ComPASS Program
- ComPASS Coordination Center
- Introduction to ComPASS – YouTube Video
- ComPASS Funded Research
- ComPASS Consultive Resource Through the Community Engagement Alliance
- Listening Sessions to Shape the Innovative NIH ComPASS Common Fund Program to Advance Health Equity
- How to Write a Compelling Research Question and Build a Research Team – Webinar
- NIH ComPASS Working Group
Definitions for each engagement objective can be found in the glossary.