Chart 1.

How Specific Community Engagement Opportunities Can Benefit AHCs and Communities

Mission	Community engagement opportunity	Benefit to community	Benefit to AHC
Research	Scientists, regardless of discipline, develop research questions in collaboration with community.19,20	Aligns research resources with local needs; increases connection to STEM mentors and training; develops community capacity to use research, seek grants, and increase CBOs’ sustainability; and ensures data can be used to support local advocacy efforts.	Increases relevance of research and likelihood that findings will be broadly implemented; increases recruitment and retention in clinical studies; enhances scientists’ competitiveness by strengthening external validity; increases internal validity by adding community perspective to construct definitions and measurement tools or strategies; produces stories useful for marketing and advocacy; and develops trainees’ skills in communication, collaboration, and engagement.
	Researchers work with community members to improve the relevance and conduct of studies, as well as the dissemination of findings and discoveries.
	Research centers invite community members to serve on search committees and interview faculty applicants, and incorporate those perspectives into hiring decisions.	All of the above, plus provides community the opportunity to exercise agency and influence decisions and increases opportunities for mutually beneficially projects.
Medical education	Medical educators integrate the community and CHNA when developing interprofessional learning opportunities. Community-based learning is evaluated in terms of outputs and outcomes relevant for learners, community members, and the AHC itself.21	Ensures learner service aligns with community needs in respectful and valued ways; evaluation allows improvement to CBO’s program and exposure to evaluation science, which is important for the partner agency’s own improvement efforts; and learners’ passion and commitment present a different side of the AHC.	Develops interprofessional competencies; develops trainees’ communication, collaboration, and engagement skills; achieves LCME standards; exposes learners directly to local sociocultural contributors to health; and produces stories useful for marketing and advocacy purposes.
	Learners across health professions and the medical education spectrum directly contribute to local CHNA processes as data collectors, analysts, or by presenting results to community groups.	Increases exposure and connection to learners, increases awareness of local health improvement activities, and presents more opportunities to codesign CHNA-related health interventions.	Provides additional labor for teaching hospitals’ community-related administrative functions; provides research practicums focused on survey design, focus group development and execution, data analysis, data reporting, program development, etc.; offers educators new opportunities to teach about social determinants of health, population heath, public health, etc.; and, provided GME involvement, contributes to the clinical learning environment’s instruction on health and health care disparities.
	Residency directors routinely model the stratification of their patient data by sociodemographic characteristics to identify health care inequities. Residents partner with community members, patients, and faculty to develop interventions.	Results in improvements to clinical work flows more likely to benefit patients’ and community members’ health outcomes.	Contributes to the clinical learning environment’s instruction on health and health care disparities; targeted disparity-focused QI efforts can have impact on overall measured quality; when implemented in an ACO or similar setting, can result in increased shared savings; advances scholarly output; and increases trainees’ patient and community engagement skills.
Clinical care	Clinical teams use data across multiple levels—clinical, sociodemographic, and neighborhood—to tailor care plans in ways that are responsive to the health and the environmental or social profiles of their patients.	Improves health outcomes, enhances knowledge of and access to community assets, and increases demand or support for local CBOs’ programs.	Improves quality of care, particularly on measures related to readmissions, cost, and resource use; enhances physician and provider wellness through increased ability to manage patients’ social factors; increases efficiency and impact of hospital community health or prevention efforts by enhancing alignment or reducing redundancy with local initiatives; and advances scholarly output.
	Clinicians and care teams, through their EHRs, have robust linkages to hospitals’ community health improvement efforts and make appropriate and timely referrals to community assets that can provide social support and resources for patients and their families.
	Care team members spend time at community-based referral partners meeting staff, engaging patients, and learning about local social service processes to improve their community knowledge and profile and to increase their ability to make appropriate, knowledgeable referrals.

Abbreviations: AHC indicates academic health center; STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; CBO, community-based organization; CHNA, community health needs assessments; LCME, Liaison Committee on Medical Education; GME, graduate medical education; QI, quality improvement; ACO, accountable care organization; EHR, electronic health record.