Lessons from the Community: How Academic Public Health–Community Partnerships Make an Impact 

Lessons from the Community: How Academic Public Health–Community Partnerships Make an Impact, held February 18, 2026, from 1:00–2:30 PM ET, was part of ASPPH’s national Public Health Listening Tour and was hosted in partnership with the Indiana University Indianapolis Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. This hybrid event brought together community members, students, faculty, and public health leaders for a shared conversation about what it truly takes to build trust, share power, and create meaningful impact through community-engaged public health. 

The Listening Tour stop centered on one guiding principle: the community is our teacher. The conversation focused on lived experiences and lessons learned from community-engaged work in Indianapolis and beyond, highlighting what has strengthened partnerships, what has fallen short, and what can be done differently moving forward. 

Insights from this event will help inform ASPPH’s Renewing the Vision initiative, aligned with the ASPPH Strategic Plan 2030, and will contribute to a broader national conversation about how academic public health can become more responsive, trustworthy, and community-centered. 

What to Expect 

This 90-minute public panel featured a facilitated conversation with individuals who are deeply engaged in community-centered public health work, including: 

• Community partners and advocates 

• Public health students 

• Faculty engaged in community-based research and practice 

• Other local voices actively working at the intersection of public health and community priorities 

Panelists shared candid reflections on what strengthens and strains relationships between communities and academic institutions, with an emphasis on listening, learning, and mutual accountability rather than debate. 

Conversation Themes 

The discussion reflected Indiana University Indianapolis’ commitment to centering lessons learned from community-engaged work and fostering dialogue that is constructive, inclusive, and grounded in practice. Questions explored included: 

• What does real impact look like in the community? 

• If you could redesign how public health schools engage with communities from the ground up, what would you keep, what would you change, and what would you stop doing altogether? 

• What responsibilities do public health students have to the communities they learn from, and how can training programs better prepare students to engage ethically and respectfully? 
   

Why This Matters 

Across the country, communities are shaping solutions to public health challenges long before they appear in national conversations. This Listening Tour created space to elevate those insights and ensure they inform how public health is taught, researched, and practiced. 

By centering community perspectives, this event: 

• Strengthened trust between academic institutions and community partners 

• Surfaced actionable lessons for teaching, research, and service 

• Supported more ethical, transparent, and accountable engagement practices 

• Contributed Indianapolis perspectives to a growing national understanding of community-led public health 

MODERATOR

PANELISTS

About the ASPPH Public Health Listening Tour 

The Public Health Listening Tour is a national ASPPH initiative designed to hear directly from communities, students, practitioners, and academic leaders about how public health can better serve the public and rebuild trust. 

Each stop elevates local voices while contributing to a broader synthesis of themes and insights that will shape ASPPH’s Renewing the Vision work and inform the future of academic public health nationwide.