For decades, health and racial equity research has helped advocates and policymakers identify health disparities and find ways to overcome them. But it could be doing even more. For too long, the field has frequently overlooked diverse voices and deep knowledge that could more readily connect findings to solutions. To increase opportunities for everyone to live the healthiest life possible, no matter who we are, where we live, or how much money we make, it’s time for research to include more perspectives, ideas, and methodologies. This includes research that we fund at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

A community-led approach works better because people in the community help identify solutions and shape the research, making the outcomes more trusted, more widely used, and more effective than when researchers work in a silo. Examples abound: 

• In 2023, East Point, Georgia added equity and health to its comprehensive plan for the first time after residents said the city’s policies didn’t do enough to support health and wellbeing. 
• The Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition was able to engage the community authentically and with much greater trust than external agencies, increasing vaccination rates. 
• When African American church leaders delivered Taking It to the Pews, an HIV awareness and screening program, members of the congregation were more likely to get screened than when outside researchers intervened. 

Rooted in Community Partnership

To ensure community members and movement leaders have the evidence and data they need to advance racial and health equity, RWJF is re-shaping its research program which aims to help dismantle structural racism and other barriers to health.

The Foundation started by teaming up with three partners who have long histories of engaging communities in their work to co-design the program: 

Together, we are developing Health Equity Research for Action, a program that prioritizes partnerships between communities and researchers. It will create space for people who’ve directly experienced barriers to health and wellness to identify the most pressing, real-world problems and the solutions they think will work best. 

When communities develop and design research, their knowledge shapes the questions and methods, leading to the most effective solutions. When community members are co-investigators, findings become tools to guide policies and inform community-based interventions, and the decisions that follow can lead to better health and wellbeing for everyone. 

Expanding What Counts as “Evidence” 

It’s past time for the research field to confront deeply ingrained biases that have led to gaps in what we know. Honoring community wisdom and experience supports equity and inclusion and yields stronger evidence. Rigor and community knowledge are inseparable elements of strong science.

Our new program will welcome a mix of research methods and approaches. That might mean:

• Analyzing the stories that people tell to better understand the meaning behind them.
• Honoring Indigenous voices and their connection to people, land, and ancestors.  
• Valuing knowledge, data, and insights produced by the community, not about them.
• Learning from real-world settings to understand what works best for the community. 

Different research questions may require different or combined methods. What’s critical is that the research methods are best suited to answering the questions at hand. 

Prioritizing Community-Driven Solutions and Inspiring Meaningful Action

Instead of focusing only on defining health disparities, this research program seeks to build networks of community members, researchers, advocates, and policymakers who will identify overlapping interests, leverage community knowledge, and co-create evidence of what works to close gaps in what we know. 

Health Equity Research for Action will support research that produces action-oriented findings that help shape policy, change institutions, and drive real-world changes. And the evidence is just the start: Findings must be shared in clear, useful ways so decision-makers, policymakers, community-based organizations, and advocates can put them to use. Evidence must have potential to shift how people think about health and racial equity and encourage them to act. Discovering the policies, practices, and systems that improve one community’s health and wellbeing creates knowledge about how to do so across the country.

Learn with Us: New Funding Opportunity

Even in this challenging moment for health equity, communities across the country are showing strength, creativity, and leadership. As the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, our co-design partners, and their communities continue to develop the Health Equity Research for Action program, we have launched our first call for proposals, From Insight to Action: Health Equity Research That Meets This Moment. We are interested in research that identifies the root causes of structural discrimination; challenges harmful narratives that undermine individual and community health and wellbeing; and disrupts growing mis- and disinformation.