Introduction
Community leaders, community members, and researchers increasingly recognize that engaging communities in research and evaluation is critical for implementing effective programs and building trust. Researchers and communities also recognize the value of community-engaged research to improve the rigor and relevance of research and evaluation and better address historical and ongoing systemic inequities.
Engaging communities in research and evaluation—especially when identifying research questions, designing and implementing the study or intervention, recruiting study participants, and interpreting findings—may lead to more relevant research questions, greater recruitment success, increased external validity, greater retention of participants, and enhanced understanding of findings.[1] Community-engaged research is more than a project or study; it is a process that requires commitment from researchers and communities to sustain long-term relationships and collaboration.
[1] Viswanathan, M., Ammerman, A., Eng, E., Garlehner, G., Lohr, K. N., Griffith, D., Rhodes, S., Samuel-Hodge, C., Maty, S., Lux, L., Webb, L., Sutton, S. F., Swinson, T., Jackman, A., & Whitener, L. (2004). Community‐based participatory research: Assessing the evidence, summary. AHRQ Evidence Report Summaries.
Purpose
On October 27—28, 2021, the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation convened a virtual meeting for participants from federal agencies, research firms, academia, and other organizations to discuss community-engaged research methods.
This summary document highlights key themes and presentations from the virtual meeting, which addressed the following questions:
- What is the motivation behind community-engaged research?
- How is community-engaged research conducted?
- What are community members’ experiences in community-engaged research?
- How can funders support community-engaged research?
- What tools and supports are available for implementing community-engaged research and evaluation approaches?
Key Findings and Highlights
- Community-engaged research advances racial equity by empowering community members and uplifting their viewpoints. Community-engaged research includes a range of methods, which researchers can select according to their project needs and desired degree of community involvement. These methods include community-based participatory research, research-practice partnerships, and youth-led participatory action research, among others.
- Researchers conducting community-engaged research should consider the historical and racial context of their work and examine their biases at the outset of a project.
- From community members’ perspectives, successful community-engaged research projects are those that prioritize trust-building between researchers and community members. Relationships are key to creating sustainable projects and partnerships.
- Funders can support community-engaged research by structuring funding opportunities that encourage participation from different types of researchers, especially those that may be disadvantaged in the traditional funding process (i.e., small research groups with limited resources).
- Many tools exist to support community-engaged researchers’ work and engage community members throughout the research process. It is important for researchers to ensure their findings are reported and disseminated equitably.
Citation
Worden, M., Wagner, H., Hyra, A., & Wright, D. (2022). Enhancing rigor, relevance, and equity in research and evaluation through community engagement (OPRE Report 2022-88). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.