Some humanities fields, understanding the growing importance and relevance of public work, have been relatively quick to incorporate teaching public work into their courses. But the arts have been slow to catch up, for example, the relatively recent fields of public musicology and public music theory. However, teaching students how to do public work and why it is important is often removed in favor of course coverage. The reality is that teaching students to do public-facing work can enhance a course’s coverage while also teaching valuable workforce skills, in or out of the arts. At a time when applied careers in the performing and visual arts are dwindling, it is crucial to include the pedagogy of public-facing work in one’s arts classroom to show students what careers are possible using their disciplinary knowledge. In this manifesto, I discuss the importance of teaching public arts methods with a view from my own field, public musicology. As a case study, I will show how teaching public musicology can be both incorporated into stand-alone courses and built into programs, as I have done in the only public musicology undergraduate program in the United States.

The Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics–Underserved Populations’ COVID-19 Equity Evidence Academy (RADx-UP EA) was a series of virtual conferences hosted between 2021 and 2023 that assembled community members, researchers, and governmental leaders from across the US to discuss and devise ways to promote equity in COVID-19 testing and vaccination. Using community-engaged methodologies in its design and implementation, this series provided a framework and forum for community and academic partners to engage in collaborative idea generation and consensus building during a public health emergency. The ideas and strategies gained during the EAs were disseminated to inform future research and action related to COVID-19. This conference paper highlights the specific engagement approaches used and the themes and recommendations generated. This model and its findings have broad utility beyond RADx-UP and can be used by researchers and practitioners to inform and advance community-engaged research and practice in diverse public health settings.

How might we learn from history in ways that help us imagine a better future? And what role might academic institutions play in making those futures imaginable? These questions informed Rosine Association 2.0, a socially engaged art project out of Swarthmore College active from 2021 to 2023. Inspired by a nineteenth-century social project in Philadelphia, Rosine 2.0 formed an interdisciplinary collective of artists, harm reduction organizers, archivists, and activists to co-imagine how harm reduction and mutual aid reduce stigma and increase community care in Philadelphia. We believe that Rosine 2.0 exemplifies the possibilities of public humanities projects that are truly collaborative and transformative. The project went beyond interdisciplinarity by bringing together the fields of archiving, history, and community engagement with communities outside of the College, including curators, artists, and individuals with lived experience. While Swarthmore was the organizing institution, the project existed outside of traditional academic frameworks, creating alternative modes of relationality between and among campus and community members. Each contributed a vital set of skills and perspectives in a networked series of collaborations. The project allowed for rethinking relationships between past and present; between the college and community partners; as well as between faculty, staff, and students in the building of social structures of community care.

Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and severity of disasters across Africa, with profound psychological consequences for young people. This paper examines the mental health impacts of climate-related events like droughts, floods and extreme weather on African youth. It explores how climate stresses compound existing societal issues, affecting young people’s well-being. Studies highlighted indicate events strongly associated with negative emotions, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression among youth. Vulnerabilities are due to disrupted community contexts and limited support systems. Challenges in providing adequate care are also reviewed, with African health systems grappling with a shortage of professionals and inadequate youth-focused care. This article proposes solutions centred on integrated disaster response, community resilience programmes and specialised youth services. Recommendations involve prioritising mental health education, establishing accessible services and collaborating with local partners. The overall aim is to comprehensively address African youth mental health needs in climate-changing contexts through holistic multi-stakeholder approaches, building coping skills and promoting wellness.

People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) often experience co-morbid/co-occurring mental health conditions, e.g., depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In resource-limited settings, where provider shortages are common, task shifting and task sharing (i.e., service delivery by non-professionals) are recommended strategies to promote access to and utilization of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services among PLWH. We conducted a global scoping review of the literature on MHPSS task shifting and sharing intervention studies for PLWH. Data extracted and summarized included study characteristics, intervention components, whether trauma informed study design, how lay health workers (LHWs) were identified and trained to deliver MHPSS services, and findings related to mental health outcomes. Results indicated that from 2013 through 2022, published intervention research concerning task shifting and sharing approaches was much more prolific in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. MHPSS interventions delivered by a variety of LHWs yielded promising associations on an array of mental health outcomes, including PTSD/trauma and suicidality, though understudied. Underreported details regarding LHW recruitment/selection, compensation, supervision and assessment made it difficult to identify common or best practices. Further research is needed to facilitate the adoption and implementation of MHPSS task shifting and sharing interventions.

Community-engaged research is essential to advance the implementation of evidence-based practices, but engagement quality is rarely assessed. We evaluated community health centers’ (CHCs) experiences partnering with the Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity (ISCCCE) using an online survey of 59 CHC staff. Of 38 respondents (64.4% response rate), most perceived their engagement positively, with over 92% feeling respected by ISCCCE collaborators and perceiving projects as beneficial. Limited staff time and resources were the main challenges identified. This study suggests the utility of gathering feedback to evaluate community research engagement and inform adaptations of research processes to optimize partnership quality.

Little guidance exists for developing institutional policies and procedures that support financial management of community-engaged research, including those related to compensating community partners equitably and efficiently for their expertise and time. To address this gap at our institution, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) pursued an iterative, multi-pronged approach to identify and address institutional barriers and facilitators related to community partner compensation for research engagement. This case study describes the approach used to involve research administrative leadership, research teams, and community partners at UNC in the identification of institutional barriers to efficient partner compensation. It also elucidates our efforts to develop policies, processes, and resources to address these barriers. The approaches and solutions described can be adapted by other academic research institutions to enhance compensation processes and to facilitate incorporation of community perspectives into the design and implementation of institutional processes that directly impact their engagement in research.

Older adults have largely been excluded from health research despite bearing a disproportionate disease burden. The Community Engagement Studio (CES) model, initially developed at Vanderbilt University in 2009, allows potential research participants to help shape research to promote greater inclusion. The University of Pittsburgh adapted the CES model for older adults (OA-CES). Tailored specifically to older adults, OA-CES addresses underrepresentation in research by gathering valuable feedback that allows investigators to make research more accessible and relevant to older people. An OA-CES toolkit will help in adapting the model in other research areas to close the gap in research inclusion.

Community advisory boards (CABs) have traditionally been formed in the context of discrete projects and served to support community protections within the confines of the associated investigation(s). However, as funding bodies increasingly prioritize health equity, CABs have shifted – evolving into long-running organizations with broader scope and value. An emerging cornerstone of these project-independent boards (PICABs) has been the formation of “Research Review Boards” (RRBs). While unified in their goal of promoting community protection and representation in health research, it is unknown to what degree RRBs differ on key features including membership, leadership, service reach, and – crucially – impact. A scoping review was conducted according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines to analyze current practices for RRBs. Of screened articles (n= 1878), 25 were included, corresponding to 24 unique RRBs. Findings indicated overlaps in the stated missions, funding structures, and processes of most RRBs. Differences in membership composition, location, service-reach, leadership structures, evaluation procedures, and perceived impact were evident. Where data is available, RRBs receive positive endorsement from both internal members and external users. Standardization of evaluation procedures is needed to fully quantify impact. Additional challenges to sustainability, communication, and conflicts (e.g., of interest, commitment, and power differentials) merit further consideration.

Each year, I brace for National Hispanic Heritage Month, the intensely rich and active national holiday that takes months to plan, weeks to execute, and days from which to recover. With community partners, we often discuss how to best make use of this public holiday to spotlight our most pressing needs. As an educator, I use this public holiday to show students and colleagues, who are ever-more concerned about curricular alignment with workforce needs, about the importance of my mother tongue and its superpower to bridge communication in our multilingual nation. In the United States, more than 40 million people speak Spanish as their first language and there are more than 50 million speakers of Spanish. We can use this national public holiday to unearth and commemorate more widely – and loudly – that Spanish is also an American language. However, we might also realize that honoring our national Hispanic heritage needs more than one month.