Engaging community health center advisors to identify research priorities for health equity

Community health centers (CHCs) and those most burdened by disease are important partners in setting research agendas to address the needs of people who are medically underserved.

Identify and prioritize health equity-focused research priorities using a collaborative approach to community engagement of key informants.

We used five stepwise phases from January 2021 to February 2023 to formulate and prioritize a set of health equity-focused research topics among CHC staff (leaders, clinicians), their key advisors (patients and community members), and researchers from academic medical centers in California. Phases included: (1) community advisory board formation, (2) key informant identification, (3) individual/small group interview guide development and administration, (4) initial health equity-focused topic categorization, and (5) in-person meeting with community advisors for final topic prioritization using nominal group technique.

Twenty individual or small group interviews were completed with 44 diverse participants, along with engagement from our community advisory board, which resulted in an initial list of 11 health equity-focused research topics. Ninety advisors including diverse community members, CHC staff/leaders, and researchers prioritized six overarching research topics. Final prioritized health-equity focused research topics include addressing mental health challenges, improving public's trust in healthcare and science, healthcare delivery models to increase access and utilization, build and sustain an anti-racist healthcare system, strategies and interventions to address health misinformation, and continuing and sustaining polices based on lessons learned from COVID-19.

Results offer future direction for community-engaged research agendas to advance health equity among medically underserved and vulnerable patient populations.