[Santorra]

Sherri had the same question for Phumeza that I had–I find it insightful that Phumeza’s community engagement began before there was even a protocol. This is something that I’ve toyed with for a couple of studies at our site; however, I found it difficult to convey anything more than the concept of the study to community members and potential stakeholders because the protocol was not yet official or was incomplete and the details frequently changed. Also, often times, the base materials for some of our studies have already been created by the core network which leaves little to no room for edits that are recommended by community members and stakeholders. In studies that we do have a little more leeway for creating our own materials for, we are often stifled by a lack of funding to produce them. Situations such as these only highlight the importance of identifying key stakeholders to educate and learn from, though.