Pursuing Research Justice Through Community-Academic Partnership to Address Racial Disparities in Preterm Birth

The California Preterm Birth Initiative is a community-engaged research effort focused on addressing racial disparities in birth outcomes.

To highlight three community-academic partnership strategies and identify partners' lessons learned and recommendations.

We conducted interviews (n = 38), four focus groups (n = 23), a document review (n = 174), and meeting/event observations (n = 36). We performed content analysis and structural and emerging coding of the data, which involved extracting and sorting information into themes.

Five themes emerged across the strategies as essential for successful partnerships addressing racial disparities: 1) incorporate a racial equity approach; 2) value community knowledge; 3) ensure accountability to community priorities; 4) build relationships and trust; and 5) address structural barriers to community-academic partnerships.

Community-academic partnerships addressing racial health disparities should confront internal and structural power dynamics early on and support affected communities to lead the efforts, including committing to funding and capacity-building activities to ensure research justice.