Community Engagement Studio as a Strategic Tool for Tailoring a Survey on Dental Care Access Among Adolescents.

Abstract

Objectives: The Community Engagement (CE) Studio aimed to provide feedback on a survey related to dental care access among adolescents. This approach allowed the research team to ensure that the survey integrated both the investigator's perspective and direct input from the community, ensuring the survey was clear, relevant, and accessible to its intended audience.

Methods: The CE Studio is an efficient consultative model for researchers to gain community input on the development, implementation, or dissemination of a research project. The CE Studio was conducted to inform the design of a survey on dental care access, based on the social determinants of health. Parents or caregivers of adolescents with limited access to dental care living in an underresourced area in Buffalo, New York, participated in the session, providing valuable insights and recommendations for the survey's construction.

Results: The CE Studio participants provided valuable feedback, including suggestions for motivating participation in the survey, changes in demographic questions, and the survey layout. Furthermore, the participants provided new insights into their dental access experiences and barriers to care, leading to additional questions for the survey. Finally, the participants suggested strategies to streamline survey instructions, provided their preferred wording for survey items and recommended how questions should be displayed to future research participants. Overall, 130 edits were made to the original survey, yielding a clearer, more representative, and accessible format.

Conclusion: CE Studios can positively impact the design of recruitment materials, survey materials, and question structures in community-focused dental health research.