Indiana CTSI researchers attend Association for Clinical and Translational Science conference in Chicago

Several researchers and staff members from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) attended the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) conference in Chicago from April 20-22.

Indiana CTSI co-director Sarah Wiehe, MD, MPH, presented during a session titled, “Using Science and Evidence to Improve Wellbeing through the WISE Indiana State University Partnership.”

Susan Perkins, PhD, participated in a panel discussion titled, “Incorporating Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Across the Life Cycle of a Research Study.”

Sylk Sotto, EdD, gave an oral poster presentation titled, “Health Equity Starts with Us: Recommendations from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Racial Justice and Health Equity Task Force.”

Many others presented posters during evening sessions, including Lynsey Delp, digital community engagement specialist for the Indiana CTSI. This year’s conference was Lynsey’s first, and it was also her first opportunity to present during the poster session. The poster Delp shared information about was the All IN for Health social media campaign which had the goal of increasing research literacy about COVID-19.

“I had no idea that another school was doing the same campaign we were doing, but on a larger scale in California,” said Delp. “It’s interesting to see how we can work on similar efforts in areas as different as the south side of Los Angeles and the Hoosier state. Even though the campaigns may have had different outcomes, I think we can all learn from each other.”

Gina Claxton, associate director of operations of the Patient Engagement Core and program manager of Community Health Partnerships at the Indiana CTSI, also participated in the poster sessions. One of her posters was about collaborations between different CTSAs and their community engagement brokers.

“Collaboration is valuable because we all have similar underlying missions, but have different infrastructures and approaches based on our campuses and CTSAs,” said Claxton. “We asked managers from different Community Engagement programs to describe some of the key things they are working on, and there was a lot of overlap, but there are also some unique efforts. For example, recruitment is one area that some community engagement teams are very involved in, while others don’t participate in that process at all. We also see variety in health focus areas and the communities we partner with based on locations in the country and sizes of the CTSA.”

View images from various sessions in the image gallery below.

Save the date for next year’s ACTS conference, which will be April 19-21 2023 in Washington, DC.