UIC’s CIRTification Training Featured in CDC’s Principles of Community Engagement Guide
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The University of Illinois Chicago Center for Clinical and Translational Science’s CIRTification training is featured in the recently published third edition of the Principles of Community Engagement guide. Included as a means of infrastructure that supports community-partnered research, CIRTification is an alternative human research protection training program developed specifically for community research partners.
Published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Principles of Community Engagement is “a practical guide for community engagement written by over 165 renowned practitioners across the country.” The updated guide includes a 10th principle, trustworthiness, a hallmark of CIRTification’s program design.
Emily Anderson, program creator, has been part of UIC CCTS since 2009 and currently serves as director Bioethics and Regulatory Support. She is also professor in the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Healthcare Leadership at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine. About the new edition she said, “For years, I have frequently referred to and cited the 2nd edition [of Principles of Community Engagement] to inform my own work. I was absolutely thrilled when I was invited to include information about CIRTification human research protections training in the new edition.”
Anderson created CIRTification as a response to a request from community-based research collaborators at UIC and other Chicago-area universities.
“At that time, community research partners were particularly challenged when they worked with multiple academic institutions in Chicago. It wasn’t just that they would have to do the required human research protections training one time, but- for example- they would have to do training through Northwestern University and UIC if they if they wanted to partner with investigators at each institution,” said Anderson.
Chuck Hoehne, assistant director of education in UIC’s Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, also commented on the limitations of training available at that time. “I was speaking at a conference when I learned first-hand what our community engaged researchers already knew: Community research partners need customized training to suit their unique roles in the conduct of community-based research,” said Hoehne.
Working collaboratively with UIC’s institutional review board (IRB), community partners, bioethicists, and human research protection program professionals, Anderson developed a program that has come to be accepted by IRBs nationwide.
Hoehne said, “The flexibility and accessibility of CIRTification allows UIC’s community partners to receive targeted and well-rounded investigator training in an appropriate and minimally burdensome way.”
Since its inception, CIRTification has become popular with community engaged research teams, with over 5,600 trained individuals and nearly 60 partner institutions across the United States. As more institutional IRBs adopted CIRTification as a training alternative, the program hit the radar of leaders in human research protections.
Elyse Summers, president and CEO of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs(AAHRPP) said, “CIRTification … exemplifies an innovative approach to promoting the involvement of community members in the design and implementation of research and the dissemination of results, which is core to AAHRPP Standards. How this program was developed, through close collaboration with community, researchers, and IRB leaders, as well as the fact that it is freely available to the HRPP community represents the kind of leadership AAHRPP welcomes and has come to expect from our accredited organizations.”
Perhaps most important is how the training is received by community-based participatory researchers and their respective community partners. Lisa Sharp, professor in the University of Illinois Chicago department of biobehavioral nursing science, has used CIRTification as a training option for her community collaborators. She shared how this approach is more appropriate for the unique lens community stakeholders have when approaching a study.
“Working with community members collaboratively on research is a priority, but too often we go in with our research hat on and forget that our community partners are not immersed in research.” said Sharp. “By offering [CIRTification] to community members, they feel more a part of the process and can gain a better understanding of what is involved, why we do things a certain way. It can also help build trust in the process.”
To learn more about CIRTification, including how your institution can adopt the training, visit https://ccts.uic.edu/resources/cirtification.