Cocreating evidence-informed health equity policy with community

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Equity Research
• Community-Based Participatory Research

Background:

• Prioritizing health equity policies requires integrating research evidence with community needs.
• Traditional policy prioritization can be slow and may not fully capture diverse community perspectives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess a rapid, community-engaged strategy for prioritizing health equity policy options.
• To explore the feasibility and value of a co-designed approach for establishing community health equity policy priorities.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive case study utilized an evidence review and community listening sessions.
• Scoping review methods informed policy options, which were then discussed and ranked by community members.
• 15 community listening sessions and 15 participatory discussion/ranking sessions were conducted.

Main Results:

• The process engaged 200 community members, identifying 99 evidence-informed policy levers for health equity.
• Community discussions and ranking successfully facilitated policy decision-making.
• Remote platforms had mixed effects on engagement; early information integration limited community ownership.

Conclusions:

• A combined approach of information integration and community ranking enables rapid, community-engaged policy prioritization.
• The strategy demonstrated authentic community ownership, though the timeline impacted full engagement in information integration.