There are many ways to define community and community engagement.
The NIH utilizes the CDC’s definition as follows: “...The process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people. It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioral changes that will improve the health of the community and its members. It often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices (CDC, 1997, p. 9). Community engagement can take many forms, and partners can include organized groups, agencies, institutions, or individuals. Collaborators may be engaged in health promotion, research, or policy making.”
Source: https://www.nih.gov/health-information/nih-clinical-research-trials-you/community-engagement
For the purposes of this toolkit, community engagement includes, but is not limited to, the following ideas:
The first step of community engagement is to define the community with which you hope to engage. For NLM and NNLM, this community can include healthcare workers, scientists and researchers, members of the public, teachers, librarians and more. Communities can exist in physical and virtual spaces. They can include people linked by location, interest, beliefs, or common goals. They are not static or passive. Understanding the community served, and the communities which could be served, is vital to beginning the engagement process.
This toolkit was originally created by NLM Fellow Allison Cruise in conjunction with the Office of Engagement & Training at the National Library of Medicine. Allison Cruise spent her 2nd Fellowship Year at UNM HSLIC.