Community Academic Partnership Programs

The ST-AHEC Program is well-positioned to continue to facilitate community-engaged research. Our most recent award enables our team to continue developing, implementing, and rigorously evaluating new programs for CHWs, which began with supplemental funding from HRSA. Below, we list some projects recently implemented by the Program Office, where we will disseminate the findings, and where community partners were included. Importantly, the 5 Centers continue to partner independently and together in community-engaged projects with academics and many UTHSA population health researchers.

Our Center promotes collaboration between interdisciplinary academics, community members, and healthcare profession students and provides mentoring in CBPR methods and scholarship to faculty, students, and community members.

Visit the Center for Community-Based Health Promotion with Women and Children page

Creando Conexiones: Establishing a Patient-Centered Cancer Health Equity Research Agenda in South Texas

The Mays Cancer Center (MCC) is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in South Texas. The MCC Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) core is responsible for informing MCC leadership and researchers of South Texas of community-stated needs and influencing the research that occurs at the MCC. The formal inclusion of survivors and caregivers in this process will enhance MCC’s COE structure to support patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER). The first goal of this PCORI-funded project is to develop the Creando Conexiones: Research Agenda that outlines patient-centered CER focus areas identified by South Texas cancer survivors and caregivers and informed by a coalition of MCC stakeholders. The second goal is to identify the infrastructure needs required at MCC to support the focus areas identified in the Creando Conexiones Research Agenda. The PI of this program is Rebecca Jones, Ph.D. Visit Mays Cancer Center Community Outreach and Engagement page for more information.

UT Teen Health

UT Teen Health (UTTH) promotes adolescent health and wellness by providing medically accurate sexual health information to the community. Since 2003, UTTH has offered sex education enriched with positive youth development learning experiences for teens in San Antonio, Texas, and surrounding areas. The education is founded on medical, legal, psychological, and socioeconomic information regarding teen sexual activity. Most recently, UT Health San Antonio entered into two cooperative agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services. The program is committed to providing medically accurate, age-appropriate, culturally competent information to the community. Our goals are to support healthy decision-making among adolescents and their families, decrease the high school drop-out rate, and decrease the teen birth rate. The PI of this program is Kristen Plastino, M.D. Visit UT Teen Health for more information.