Building Trust Through Dialogue: Community Town Hall Meetings as a Participatory Dissemination Method in Project ENTRUST
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2026-01-01
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Project ENTRUST, launched in 2021, aimed to assess and strengthen local community trust in an Academic Medical Center through a participatory dissemination approach grounded in equity and authentic community engagement. In partnership with community-based organizations serving underrepresented populations, ENTRUST co-developed a trust survey (n=6,167) and implemented a novel method of community-engaged survey data interpretation and results dissemination. Over 300 community members participated in six multilingual community town hall meetings where survey findings were shared using accessible data visualizations designed to support comprehension among diverse participants. Each session featured breakout discussions co-facilitated by trained dyads of community leaders and health system staff, followed by plenary report-backs to elevate community voices. This participatory dissemination method disrupted traditional research paradigms by positioning community members as co-analysts and research partners. This paper presents the ENTRUST model process in brief, and details partner selection, design and facilitation, training materials, and data communication tools for community town hall meetings. Post-event evaluations underscore ENTRUST’s effectiveness in fostering trust, surfacing actionable insights, and promoting inclusive participation in health care and research. Project ENTRUST offers a replicable framework for community-based participatory research practitioners and Academic Medical Centers seeking to build and repair trust through sustained, community-led dialogue and participatory dissemination.
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El-Amin, S, K Bentley-Edwards, J Sperling, EJ Uejo, A Tsui, C Canty-Dumas, PB Muhigaba, S Quenstedt, et al. (2026). Building Trust Through Dialogue: Community Town Hall Meetings as a Participatory Dissemination Method in Project ENTRUST. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 7(2). 10.35844/001c.161890 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/34917.
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Salimah El-Amin
I am a public health practitioner, researcher, and educator. My work focuses on the social determinants of health, structural factors shaping health outcomes, and persistent health inequities. I currently serve as the Assistant Director of the Center for Research, Community Engagement, Social Action and Trust (CREST). Previously, I worked at Duke University from 2015–2018 at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity as a Faculty Affiliate and Senior Researcher.
Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards
Dr. Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards is a developmental psychologist and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. Her research examines how structural inequality, gender, and cultural context shape health and development across the lifespan, with a particular focus on African American families, children, and communities. Her work centers the experiences of marginalized communities to eliminate disparities in health outcomes and access, and to advance trustworthy research practices. She holds leadership roles at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Duke's Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and serves as Chair of the Society for Research in Child Development's Black Caucus.
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