Designing and Implementing a Curriculum to Support Health Equity Research Leaders: The Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Experience

Abstract

Health inequities in the United States are well-documented. However, research that is focused on solutions, rather than just describing the problem, and research that is designed explicitly to inform needed policy and practice change, is still too rare. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) program launched in 2016 with the goal of filling this gap: to generate community-engaged research to catalyze policy action in communities, while promoting leadership among researchers and community partners. In this paper, we describe the creation and implementation of a curriculum for IRL program participants over the first 5 years of the program. The curriculum—spanning domains of leadership, policy, communication, community engagement, and research methodologies—was designed to cultivate leaders who use research evidence in their efforts to promote change to advance health equity in their communities. The curriculum components implemented by IRL might be applied to other educational programs or fellowships to amplify and accelerate the growth of leaders nationwide who can use research and action to respond to grave and ongoing threats to community health.

Promoting Authentic Academic—Community Engagement to Advance Health Equity

“…Taking inventory of these collective and complementary strengths helps team members see how they can support one another. These discussions are also enhanced by finding ways to build trust, such as finding commonalities and shared experiences [33]. Similarly, it is important to identify common values and develop guiding principles that will help determine decision-making within the partnership.…”

“…This determines the expectations for engagement, including roles, frequency, and the long-term sustainability of a project. From a community perspective, authentic engagement means their voice is heard, their suggestions are being incorporated and implemented, they are involved in decision-making and have shared power with academic researchers, and the outcomes of the partnership have some direct benefit to them, their organization, and/or their community [33].…”

“…Decisions regarding which level of engagement scholars choose and how long partnerships should last do not occur in a vacuum [31,33]. For example, funders and universities play a critical role in determining the shape and longevity of community-academic partnerships.…”

“…Another example of a funding opportunity that prioritizes the development of sustainable, effective partnerships is the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) program, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative [33]. This three-year program provides funding to fellows, often comprised of academic researchers and community partners, to develop leadership skills that span different sectors and disciplines, creating a national network of leaders to advance health equity.…”

“…The program provides funding for a research project in which there is an intentional focus on the development of a sustainable partnership. This training is delivered through frequent webinars and national meetings that bring together teams from all over the U.S. to share their work collaborative leadership process and to network in addition to content that is provided asynchronously through a learning management system [33]. These efforts not only assist in the development of community capacity to more fully participate in partnerships, they make the playing field more even, centering power rather than allowing academic researchers to drive directions and activities [31,33].…”