Bettina Drake, PhD, MPH, Director of the Confluence Collaborative, discusses cancer prevention at a health fair.
Fostering community-engaged research, teaching, and practice

The Confluence Collaborative for Community Engagement supports faculty and community members and organizations in developing strong partnerships to co-design research projects and academic courses focused on addressing the St. Louis region’s most critical needs.

St. Louis community

Your expertise and community knowledge are the foundation of our work.

WashU scholars

Your work elevates the programs that support the community we call home.

2025 Community-Engaged Research Symposium

The Confluence Collaborative hosted its inaugural research symposium, bringing together WashU scholars and St. Louis community partners.

Upcoming events

Latest news

SPHERE convening addresses how environmental change shapes disease risk

The first annual convening of WashU Public Health’s Solutions through Planetary Health Research (SPHERE) network explored how infectious disease risk is changing as the environment changes, and why coordinated, multisectoral collaborations are essential to respond effectively.

The Collaborative’s work

We create partnerships between our region and WashU. We help community leaders by providing outreach, connections, and resources to meet the needs of St. Louis.


Connect with us

Whether you’re new to the field or have a specific project you’re ready to embark on, we’re here to support your work.

We’re working toward taking WashU’s significant knowledge and expertise and making sure that the questions we’re asking, the problems we’re trying to tackle, are those that are going to make a difference in the lives of the people who are giving their time (and) sharing their resources to help us generate this new knowledge.

Vetta Sanders-Thompson, PhD, Brown School