Session: Community Research Capacity: A Foundation to Reduce Health Disparities (Society for Social Work and Research 14th Annual Conference: Social Work Research: A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES)

This session discusses communities’ needs for relevant, current and usable data to improve community health and well-being. The importance of sustainable, equitable, collaborative partnerships between community and academic entities to build community research capacity is discussed as are examples of NIH initiatives to support such activity. The link between community research capacity and health disparities reduction will be discussed as will social work research and the NIH’s complementary and dialectic roles in developing a community research agenda in health disparities reduction.