Community Conversations – Flint, MI

The report below summarizes key insights and outcomes from the Flint Community Conversation. This conversation aimed to gather perspectives from individual community members on barriers and opportunities for integrating meaningful community engagement into clinical research. The findings may be used to inform the ENGAGE Working Group and future efforts related to community engagement.

Final Flint Community Report

The above figure was shared with attendees to get individual perspectives on the ease of understanding and usability of this potential public engagement model.  NIH invites all interested individuals to provide their thoughts on this model.  If you would like to add your voice to the conversation, please email your thoughts to [email protected].

Twenty-seven community members took part in the Flint, Michigan community conversation held at the Gloria Coles Flint Public Library. Individual community members emphasized the need for researchers to take the time to build relationships with the community, engage the community throughout the research lifecycle, and provide feedback to the community about the research results. Individual community members noted material provided to the community needs to be in plain language and accessible to all. Individual community members also noted that trust takes time to develop, and building and sustaining a relationship with the community are a foundation to trust-building.

The illustration above is a graphical summary of comments from the attendees of the Flint community conversation