Communities and academic researchers must collaborate to improve health equity, but finding each other and aligning goals can be challenging.
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Public Health (SPH) and the Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) have been looking for a way to make these connections easier. They developed a program called Community Voices, and have brought in researchers and community partners to shape the program and suggest ways to improve these partnerships. The findings from this work were published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, and provide important insight into how to foster healthy community and researcher partnerships.
“One of the biggest benefits of community and academic partnerships is that researchers are addressing concerns that are important and a priority for the community rather than only being important from our own research perspective,” said Maggie Ramirez, assistant professor of Health Systems and Population Health at SPH and lead author of the paper. “In doing so, it helps to increase the likelihood that research will have impact.”
Working closely with community partners throughout the research process is a familiar area for Linda Ko, professor of Health Systems and Population Health and a leader at ITHS, which houses the Community Voices program. Ko uses community-based participatory research principles in her own research, which emphasizes viewing community members as equal partners across all stages of research.