The Alliance for Community Engagement – Climate Health (ACE-CH) promotes partnerships between academic researchers and communities to empower communities to (1) understand how climate change contributes to health disparities; (2) measure the needs of the communities most likely to be affected by the impact of climate on health; (3) assess community knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about the impact of climate on health; (4) address gaps in knowledge in the community; and finally, (5) build trust and strong partnerships that encourage actions to reduce the impact of climate on health, share knowledge, and improve awareness of local health issues.

The American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders (AIAN-NHPI) Enrichment Initiative was established to engage entities with expertise, capacity, and demonstrable achievements in community engagement and outreach within AIAN-NHPI communities to join CEAL in addressing health disparities related to COVID-19 and other comorbidities. The role of the AIAN-NHPI Enrichment Initiative is critical to the success of CEAL to ensure that these communities directly benefit from research discoveries and assist in understanding optimal approaches to addressing health disparities.

The Community Engagement Alliance Consultative Resource (CEACR) serves as a conduit for community-engaged best practices to NIH-funded research teams who seek to apply principles of community-engaged approaches to address health disparities. Through a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, CEACR hosts dozens of tailored consultations ranging in focus from equitable partner compensation to the appropriateness of public-facing study-recruitment materials. Over 300 people across the country have joined CEACR webinars, which bring together experts from academic, clinical, and community-based settings to lead discussions focused on inclusive participation in research.

The Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Regional Teams are located within communities where health disparities exist to conduct community-engaged research focused on public health needs that align with CEAL's mission, goals, and objectives. Each CEAL Regional Team includes principal investigator(s), academic partners, and an array of community partners. These teams were initially funded to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the focus of the pandemic shifts, their focus has expanded. CEAL Regional Teams are working to address persistent health disparities in the most affected communities, such as major chronic diseases/conditions, Long COVID, and their risk factors.

The health-knowledge landscape has significantly changed over the last decade and the spread of health information made more robust — some accurate and some inaccurate or misleading based on current scientific consensus. The Health Knowledge Monitoring and Response System (HKMRS) Pilot is an effort that seeks to test the feasibility of building upon a network of community monitoring, prevalence assessment, and response to disrupt the spread of inaccurate health information and deliver timely, relevant, and accurate health information at the local and national level. From March 2023 to September 2024, Phase I of the Pilot used community partnerships to build health knowledge and trust in communities in Colorado, Texas, and the Washington, D.C. region, including the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Launched in September 2024, Phase II of the Pilot will be conducted by public health organizations in Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina. 

The Maternal Health Community Implementation Program (MH-CIP) aims to reduce maternal deaths and improve health outcomes, especially in populations that are impacted most by high rates of pregnancy-related complications and deaths. With a focus on promoting heart, lung, blood, and sleep health, MH-CIP develops and tests community-based implementation strategies to increase the adoption, uptake, scale up, and scale out of evidence-based interventions to improve health before, during, and after pregnancy. The program emphasizes community-engaged implementation research firmly connected to and embedded in affected communities.

Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone Community Implementation Project (IMPROVE-CIP) focuses on factors contributing to maternal mortality and severe morbidity, including mental health, substance use, psychosocial factors, and social and structural determinants of health. IMPROVE-CIP seeks to empower communities across the United States to be full partners in community-engaged research and contribute resources to understand factors that contribute to health disparities related to maternal health; measure the needs and priorities of impacted communities, across multiple sectors (such as health care and community settings), that would benefit most from improved maternal health; implement effective strategies to assess community knowledge; address health knowledge gaps in the community; and build trust and strong partnerships that encourage maternal health.

The Network for Community-Engaged Primary Care Research (NCPCR) supports CEAL’s mission by using community-engaged research in primary care settings to identify and implement interventions and service delivery strategies to address health disparities. The trusted voices of health care providers are enabled as they engage patients within their communities to actively address in knowledge, build trust in biomedical research and science, and address social determinants of health and chronic disease.