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Applying antiracism principles helps researchers actively identify, examine, and prevent the perpetuation of longstanding racist theories.

Advancing racial health equity in social care research begins with understanding a community’s needs and acknowledging potential biases in the research process. Antiracism principles encourage meaningful partnerships with community organizations, positioning them as co-collaborators and experts who can best identify solutions to improve health outcomes.

Antiracism principles can be applied to the research process by:

Understanding how racism directly impacts social care
Embracing intersectionality to understand how multiple social identities can increase marginalization
Involving communities to work toward a collective goal
Collaborating and building relationships with community partners to help check potential biases

It’s important to apply antiracism principles at every stage of the research process to ensure solutions effectively work to dismantle structural racism in healthcare.

Population health isn’t achieved overnight; it requires long-term effort and investment in the community.

Achieving population health in communities is a process that requires culture building, tapping into external resources, and developing staff capacity. Health departments must thoughtfully involve the community in their work to develop a population-based approach to identify and improve local health outcomes. It’s also critical that public health departments build a culture of population health within their own walls by embracing internally the policies, such as annual flu vaccinations, they promote externally.

Data, community partnerships, and a deep understanding of local social determinants of health are critical to public health departments successfully engaging in population health efforts and initiatives. Public health departments can begin working towards population health by:

Planning efforts alongside public health staff and community members
Creating committees and coalitions to align health goals and mobilize efforts
Encouraging and facilitating a learning environment
Determining capacity gaps and developing staff to fill them

Funding community-led research ensures those most affected by ongoing inequities can create solutions that address their own needs.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) work directly in communities and understand ongoing challenges and inequities but are often left out of funding opportunities to improve health.

Research funding traditionally flows to academic institutions instead of CBOs, creating a power imbalance and making it difficult to incorporate lived experience into research efforts.

Community-led research is an underutilized and underfunded approach that can empower and enable communities and researchers to co-create and implement solutions that tackle systemic inequities.

Community members have a unique understanding of community needs, and community-based organizations can be used as a lever to drive research efforts.

Funders can encourage community-led research by:

Adjusting grant applications to include community-based organizations
Recognizing historical biases that may prevent direct funding to communities
Positioning community members as leaders in research and involving them in all stages of research development

Incorporating community experience into research can help identify specific needs and develop targeted solutions.

Community-centered research can effectively create solutions and drive long-lasting change.

Shifting the focus of research to be community led can help inform innovative ideas and findings. Without community voices, studies have the potential to include biases and ineffectively address issues affecting specific populations. Sharing power with community members allows people to inform solutions to problems they experience.

Cultivating relationships with community members includes:

Collaborating authentically through active listening
Sharing goals and resources with community members
Providing timely access to gathered data
Staying in touch over time

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Resources

These tools offer insights into how others increased collaboration and equity.

Recommended Readings

Resource Collection

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