Investing in Our Communities: Community-Engaged Scholarship
To judge Pitt’s engagement with the surrounding community, just glance at Pitt’s Engagement and Outreach Map to see more than 400 ongoing University-related research, engagement and outreach activities. You’ll find 412 Food Rescue internships; the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies’ Outreach Program; Pitt’s Center for Excellence in Autism Research; and partnerships with the Westmoreland Diversity Coalition.
Much of the time, this takes the form of community-engaged scholarship, a type of engagement that occurs when community and University partners collaboratively undertake research and creative discovery activities that have a social impact purpose. For example, the Rhythm Experience and Africana Culture Trial (REACT!) helps older African American individuals to improve their brain aging by taking part in an African dance class or Africana culture class taught by local community-based artists at one of the University’s Community Engagement Centers. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, REACT! studies brain changes in late adulthood and how factors such as physical activity promote successful aging and neurocognitive health. The study is facilitated by Kirk Erickson, principal investigator of the Brain Aging & Cognitive Health Lab at Pitt and professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology, and project coordinator Mihloti Williams, a biokineticist and graduate of Pitt’s Master of Public Health program.
“It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Community-engaged research is a vital part of Pitt’s mission to create knowledge that serves society.”
To facilitate Pitt’s community-facing work, the Office of Engagement and Community Affairs (ECA) brokers partnerships between community and University collaborators while leading the University’s place-based engagements in the city of Pittsburgh via its Community Engagement Centers. ECA and the centers support positive relationships with the neighbors and organizations closest to campus while creating opportunities to elevate and celebrate the breadth of community engagement at Pitt.
In another long-term outreach program known as The Pittsburgh Study, researchers from Pitt and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh are collaborating with more than 500 community partners to promote racial equity and child thriving. This longitudinal collective impact study focuses on conducting research with—not on—the community, implementing community-driven solutions and documenting social influences on a child’s well-being. Codirected by Elizabeth Miller, director of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at the Pitt School of Medicine, and Felicia Savage Friedman, an anti-racism trainer and integrated yoga instructor, The Pittsburgh Study confronts the social, racial and economic inequalities that prevent children and communities from thriving. It is one of the first studies to explore these factors over an extended period with community partners involved as citizen scientists.
Researchers in The Pittsburgh Study strive to identify bright spots—areas where things are going well—in schools, homes and the community in order to approach their work from a strengths-based perspective rather than a deficit-based one and to focus on protective factors and resilience. The study centers community members and their wisdom in the work by honoring and listening to members’ lived experiences. As one community member noted, “The antidote to trauma is resilience.”