Karen Glanz and Kevin Volpp, Co-Leads
The Administration and Infrastructure Core provides strategic direction to all of the UPenn PRC’s activities and initiatives. It facilitates communication with and collaboration among participating faculty, staff, and key partners, including the Internal Advisory Board and Community Advisory Board. It works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the national network of PRCs in relationship to programmatic and administrative matters. The Core expands impact by fostering synergy in the prevention research interests of its affiliated faculty, centers, and organizations at Penn and within the surrounding community.

The Community Engagement, Partnership, and Technical Assistance Core works closely with the UPenn PRC Community Advisory board to guide activities of the PRC by convening quarterly meetings and soliciting interim feedback. It provides technical assistance in the use of mixed methods for and scholarly publishing of applied public health research, including providing consultation to community organizations and to trainees and junior faculty, especially those engaged in community based research. In the long term, the Core will disseminate information throughout community networks about the activities of the PRC and vice versa, serving as “eyes and ears” to inform the PRC of community needs and priorities.

The Communication and Dissemination Core uses state-of-the-art techniques and technologies to foster communication, forge strong connections, and disseminate cutting edge tools and research to the academic, scientific, local health, and local news media communities. In addition to developing a vibrant website, the C&D core uses social media platforms to highlight the work of UPenn PRC researchers.

The Training Core of the UPenn PRC cultivates training opportunities and provides technical assistance to PRC research investigators and partners. In addition, it recruits trainees to participate in Core activities as well as Special Interest Projects. The Training Core actively monitors opportunities within Penn and the prevention research community to highlight for students, post-doctoral fellows, and researchers, and it collaborates with the Evaluation and Admin Cores to continually assess training needs, monitor quality and implementation, and develop 5 year plan training activities.

The Evaluation Core will investigate the structure of the UPenn PRC to assess, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the linkages and collaborations within and across the University of Pennsylvania and community stakeholders invested in prevention research. To this end, the Core will conduct a social network analysis to evaluate changes in interaction, patterns of collaboration, and trends in publication that result from being affiliated with the UPenn PRC. In addition, the Evaluation Core is working with Research Project Core to conduct cost analysis for the Healthy Weigh Study. The Evaluation Core provides training on evaluation of evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention interventions.