We work to improve the health of North Carolinians by building authentic partnerships between patients, communities, researchers, and health care providers.

The Patient and Community Engagement in Research (PaCER) program seeks to promote and support engaged approaches to clinical and translational research and build capacity for researchers, patients, and communities to engage in partnerships that ensure bi-directional communication and community input from conceptualization through dissemination.

We leverage UNC-Chapel Hill's extensive experience serving North Carolina communities and multiple existing community-based research efforts to create a unique program with interdisciplinary leadership and a focus on:

• Facilitating engagement among UNC researcher teams and community partners across the state. Such partners include patients; caregivers; community members and leaders; community-based organizations; academic institutions; and advocacy groups

• Training community, academic, and clinical audiences on best practices of community-engaged research, and building capacity among academic, community, and patient partners to collaborate on health-related research and initiatives

• Funding activities that catalyze engaged clinical and translational research through the Engagement Voucher program. Vouchers of up to $5,000 can be used to support engagement-related activities during the pre-award period, including partner compensation, in-person meeting expenses (venue, food, transportation, childcare), and translation and interpretation

Additional Resources

• TraCS helps bring community voices and research participant experiences to light through qualitative research
• The TraCS Implementation Science service promotes novel approaches to engagement and implementation science, as well as provides technical assistance to investigators conducting dissemination and implementation science studies
• The TraCS Inclusive Science Program provides study leadership and expert research guidance for considering health equity, multicultural populations, and data equity in research design, implementation, and reporting.
• The TraCS Recruitment & Retention service provides resources to help researchers analyze protocols, accelerate start-up, and manage recruitment throughout the clinical research study lifecycle
• TraCS supports research in primary care settings through six practice-based research networks and over 615 providers in over 140 practices across the state