Connect: Cultivating Academic-Community Partnerships to Address Our Communities' Complex Needs During Public Health Crises.

BACKGROUND: Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately impacted by coronavirus disease 2019 and we sought to understand perceptions and attitudes in four heavily impacted New Jersey counties to develop and evaluate engagement strategies to enhance access to testing.

OBJECTIVE: To establish a successful academic/community partnership team during a public health emergency by building upon longstanding relationships and using principles from community engaged research.

METHODS: We present a case study illustrating multiple levels of engagement, showing how we successfully aligned expectations, developed a commitment of cooperation, and implemented a research study, with community-based and health care organizations at the center of community engagement and recruitment.

LESSONS LEARNED: This paper describes successful approaches to relationship building including information sharing and feedback to foster reciprocity, diverse dissemination strategies to enhance engagement, and intergenerational interaction to ensure sustainability.

CONCLUSIONS: This model demonstrates how academic/community partnerships can work together during public health emergencies to develop sustainable relationships.