The Hill: Prof. Sprague Martinez Advocates for Shift Toward Community-Researcher Partnership in Op-Ed
In an op-ed published by The Hill, Professor Linda Sprague Martinez of BU School of Social Work (BUSSW) and colleague Doug Brugge of University of Connecticut’s School of Medicine explain why community-researcher partnerships are critical to restoring the connection between the public and academic research.
Excerpted from “To restore trust in science, make it accessible. Here’s how” by Linda Sprague Martinez and Doug Brugge (The Hill, 7/12/22):
American trust in medical science is waning. Less than a third of adults — just 29 percent — report having “a great deal of trust” in medical researchers, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trust. For most of our careers, but accelerating during the COVID pandemic, there has been a worrisome gap between those of us who conduct research and the public.
It’s time for both researchers and research funders to rethink and strengthen how they engage the communities around them — and to work closely with those communities to articulate research in a more meaningful way.
The article builds off of Sprague Martinez’s leadership in community-based participatory research, a model that approaches scientific research as a collaboration between researchers and communities. As an example of the model, Sprague Martinez and Brugge cite a shared ongoing project on the impacts of air pollution in which residents and community leaders have input on research and interventions. The result, they write, has been “broad participation and the development of meaningful air filtration interventions, as well as the development of culturally relevant health communication materials.”
Sprague Martinez is also working to spread community-researcher partnerships in other ways. As part of BU Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI)’s Community Engagement Program, she and Deborah Chassler, senior academic researcher at BUSSW, launched Communities Connecting to Research, a free online training hosted by The Network for Professional Education at BUSSW that introduces community members to research partnerships.
In addition to her research and faculty role at the School of Social Work, Sprague Martinez is co-director of the CTSI Community Engagement Program, assistant director of research at the Center for Antiracist Research, and faculty affiliate at the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH) at BUSSW.
Read Prof. Sprague Martinez’s full op-ed in The Hill.