Community Based Participatory Research Implementation Science and ETHICS

11:00-11:10 Introductions - Daniel Ebbs

11:10-11:45 Keynote: Why CBPR? - Magdalena Avila

11:45-12:00 CBPR and Yale: A Local LENS - Jose DeJesus

12:00-12:30 Lunch

12:30-12:50 Photovoice, Youth Participatory Action Research, and Ethics - Mayte Restrepo-Ruiz

12:50-1:10 Implementation Science and CBPR - Shayna D. Cunningham

1:10-1:30 Building Global Capacity in Research Ethics for Community Researchers - Daniel Ebbs

1:30-1:50 Uganda Program

1:50-2:10 Guatemala Program

2:10-2:30 Ethiopia Program

Speakers:

Daniel Ebbs, Program Director, Program in Global Participatory Research and Ethics
Dr. Ebbs is a Pediatric Critical Care Attending at Yale, Co-hub site PI for the Pediatric Pandemic Network, and Director of the Yale MacMillan Center program Global Participatory Research and Ethics. He is affiliate faculty of the Institute for Global Health and Yale Uganda; he also serves on the Yale Global Health Council and is the Assistant Director for the Pediatrics Global Health Track. He is cofounder of MGY (www.mgyaware.org), the Laro Kwo (saving lives) project in Northern Uganda, and the MGY team leader for clinical applications of projects.

Dr. Ebbs earned his M.S concentrating in Community Health with a focus on community based participatory research (CBPR) in global health at the University of New Mexico, finishing in 2013. His M.S. training focused on the role of community health workers in rural and developing regions around the world, specifically in West Borneo and the NE Peruvian Amazon. His research interests include community participatory research in global health, ethics in global health, pediatric disaster medicine, and prehospital triage in resource limited settings.

Magdalena Avila, Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico
Magdalena M. Avila, Dr.P.H., MPH, MSW is an original member of the core administrative research team for the Transdisciplinary Research Center for Equity and Engagement (TREE) Center from 2017-2025. She was co-director of the CEDC until her retirement as emeritus faculty in Dec 2020. As UNM retired emeritus faculty she is still fully involved with TREE as part of the CEDC team partnering with community research partners on community engagement and community based participatory research (CBPR). Dr. Avila identifies as a public health researcher and scholar activist dedicated to Social, Health, Economic and Environmental Justice. She has worked her entire professional career of over 35-40 years in partnering with frontline communities in addressing public health challenges and creating sustainable community-based cultural interventions. All of Dr. Avila's graduate work and degrees are from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Avila's research trajectory has always been focused on advancing the science of community engagement and CBPR. Integrating high caliber research practices into collaborative partnerships for research in combination with the latest qualitative research methodology are part of her priority community engagement/CBPR research missions and aims.

She is also a key member of the Equity Policy Group/Institute. Dr. Avila strongly believes that the academy must advance with the communities it serves and not advance in a vacuum and the TREE manifests that academic vision. Dr. Avila has always worked with frontline communities in acknowledging traditional and spiritual ways of healing and building capacity as part of community engagement and empowerment. Training and partnering with community stewards and building collaborative engagement by integrating indigenous methodology to build capacity is also an area of her expertise (traditional knowledge and holistic ways of healing).

Jose DeJesus, Community Engagement Coordinator, Yale National Clinical Scholar Program
I believe that I have a unique role to play in helping to bridge the gap between local New Haven Connecticut communities and the world class health care offered through the Yale School of Medicine.

As the current Community Engagement Coordinator for the Yale National Clinical Scholar Program and former Community Health Educator for the Yale Cancer Center I bring more than twenty-five years of program development and implementation experience within health and human services agencies as well as clinical experience as a Recreational Therapist in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital. Throughout these experiences, I have worked with multidisciplinary teams in New Haven and other cities in the state to make sure that diverse, but underserved residents received respectful care. A proud, bilingual (Spanish-English) resident of New Haven, I have always been able to lend a community perspective to more clinical and technical aspects of my positions. Moreover, as a former small business owner and community advocate, I’m always looking for ways to reach the most at-risk and hard-to-reach populations within CT communities, particularly Hispanic/Latino and African American residents, and other underserved communities. Since joining the Yale, I have worked diligently to develop community partnerships where there were few and increased the number and quality of community health events, we have offered to Connecticut residents. Over the next few years, I look forward to improving our ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of our community outreach efforts with diverse qualitative and quantitative metrics and increasing the proportion of minority residents participating in clinical trials, prevention and/or screening programs.

Mayte Restrepo-Ruiz, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health, University of Connecticut
Dr. Mayte Restrepo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, whose scholarship sits at the intersection of violence prevention, mental health, and health equity. Trained as a psychologist in Colombia and holding an MPH and a PhD from UConn, she brings more than 20 years of experience spanning community practice, program implementation, and community participatory research. Her work investigates how social determinants and various forms of violence—including conflict, intimate partner violence, and childhood adversity—influence the mental health of underserved communities. Her work also identifies buffering and resilience factors that mitigate the impact of adversity and employs community-based participatory research approaches to strengthen advocacy and promote structural change.

Dr. Restrepo has led initiatives to prevent childhood adversity, support youth well-being, and advance data-driven decision-making. She currently directs a project focused on emotional health strategies for Latine adolescents. Previously, she led Connecticut's CDC-funded ACEs surveillance portal and managed a trial of substance use treatment for parents involved with the child welfare system. Her publications examine pathways linking armed conflict to intimate partner violence using socio-ecological frameworks; the mental health consequences of conflict exposure; and resilience among youth exposed to macro-level violence in Latin America. She has also contributed to scholarship on human rights, stigma, and substance use. Her research has earned competitive recognition, including the NIHMD Health Disparities Research Scholar award and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Emergent Scholar Fellowship.

Across her work as an investigator, evaluator, educator, and advocate, Dr. Restrepo has demonstrated a sustained commitment to advancing health equity among populations disproportionately affected by violence and structural inequities. She brings strong leadership and collaborative expertise to organizations working to scale violence-prevention and mental health initiatives.

Shayna D. Cunningham, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, UCONN School of Medicine
Shayna D. Cunningham, PhD, MHS, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine with expertise in health services research, implementation science, and program evaluation. Her research focuses on promoting health equity for structurally marginalized populations, with a particular emphasis on maternal and child health and improving healthcare delivery across clinical and community settings. She has extensive expertise in mixed-methods and community-based participatory research and partners with community, clinical, and public-sector organizations to develop and evaluate interventions, build workforce capacity, and support the translation of evidence into practice.