Outreach, Collaboration, and Dissemination: Goals and Strategies

Outreach, collaboration, and dissemination efforts enable the communication of key findings of minority health and health disparities research to be shared with the people and communities that need them. These activities help advance the development of dissemination plans to enhance networks of minority health and health disparities researchers and stakeholders across the nation and within NIH.

• Goal 8: Promote evidence-based community engagement, dissemination, and implementation of minority health and health disparities research best practices
• Goal 9: Cultivate and expand a community of minority health and health disparities researchers and advocates

Goal 8: Promote evidence-based community engagement, dissemination, and implementation of minority health and health disparities research best practices

This goal advances evidence-based community outreach and dissemination, and implementation of findings from minority health and health disparities research into clinical, community, and everyday settings. Dissemination and implementation strategies should be embedded as core components of the research process from the initial stages. Developing and testing strategies for dissemination and implementation of scientific advances will facilitate the translation of research into policy and practice.

Strategy 8.1: Develop and test best practices for dissemination and implementation of minority health and health disparities research discoveries into different settings and with different populations.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Test best practices for dissemination and implementation of minority health and health disparities research discoveries in diverse diseases and conditions into rural communities, communities with a high proportion of populations with limited English proficiency, and communities with a high proportion of populations with low health literacy.

Building Momentum:

• Develop and test an agency-wide Language Access Plan (LAP) to improve access to health communication modalities, such as online and/or written materials, for dissemination and implementation of minority health and health disparities research discoveries for conditions in rural communities, communities where English is not the primary language, and communities with low health literacy.

Strategy 8.2: Conduct studies to determine strategies for effective population-specific communication and outreach to inform recruitment and retention into clinical research studies and databases, design of culturally appropriate health interventions, and community engagement and participation in research.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Disseminate culturally appropriate educational materials and evidence-based interventions to appropriate communities to increase participation in research studies and clinical trials amongst populations experiencing health disparities.

Building Momentum:

• Design and conduct educational interventions to engage underserved communities and encourage participation in health disparity research and evaluate the effects of culturally appropriate outreach strategies related to basic, behavioral, clinical, and genomic research participation.

Strategy 8.3: Generate strategies and tools to transform minority health and health disparities best practices into policies.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Assess outreach tools and strategies that address minority health and health disparity concerns, including risk and prevention, to determine best evidence-based practices to be implemented and promoted into policies for care.

Building Momentum:

• Enhance targeted efforts that result in shorter lag time between collecting evidence and adopting evidence-based efforts in dissemination/implementation that drive policy decisions.
• Ensure that culturally appropriate strategies and tools are properly disseminated and implemented in relevant populations, in an effort to influence policy with successful evidence-based methods.
• Establish working relationships with policy think tank organizations to inform policymakers on successful minority health and health disparity practices that should be disseminated and implemented on a larger scale.

Goal 9: Cultivate and expand a community of minority health and health disparities researchers and advocates

This goal promotes a community of minority health and health disparities–focused research within NIH, HHS, and beyond. The community should include NIH, other government agencies, academia, and the private sector. Through collaboration and partnerships, the community should advance the sciences of minority health and health disparities as well as integrate supporting structures and activities, such as quarterly or biannual science highlights and discussions at major NIH meetings. The development of this community also may help to ensure that MH and HD research questions are integrated into mainstream, disease-focused scientific communities and ensure that the impact of health disparities is considered across disciplines.

Strategy 9.1: Build an NIH-wide interdisciplinary community of scholars around minority health and health disparities research to coordinate disparities science and to foster accountability and integration of minority health and health disparities science within NIH research activities.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Promote intramural training opportunities that support minority health and health disparities science, such that projects are designed with enough power for subpopulation or granular analysis in conjunction with primary analyses.
• Promote extramural training opportunities that support minority health and health disparities science, such that projects are designed with enough power for subpopulation or granular analysis in conjunction with primary analyses.

Building Momentum:

• Ensure the dissemination and diffusion of health disparity research activities and results to diverse groups within NIH.
• Create an annual event at NIH to showcase health disparities science with regard for the health determinants and integration into biomedical research.

Strategy 9.2: Promote interagency collaboration and coordination with federal departments and agencies, including use of common data elements and data sharing relevant to health disparities research.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Improve the generalizability of health disparity research findings by coordinating with other federal agencies in the development and administration of population surveys that use common data elements.
• Improve health literacy by working with sister agencies to develop and disseminate research-based educational information to specific communities experiencing health disparities.

Building Momentum:

• Provide research results to working groups for the Healthy People 2030 initiative and similar federal initiatives to facilitate health disparity data sharing for decisionmaking.

Strategy 9.3: Establish partnerships with nongovernmental groups, such as mentoring networks, foundations, professional organizations, advocacy groups, industry, science communities, and grantees, to advance the development, improvement, and utilization of minority health and health disparities definitions, methods, measures, metrics, interventions, and best practices.

Action Priority Areas

Starting Line:

• Disseminate NIH health disparity research priorities and research results through lecture series and workshops to a variety of audiences, including current and potential health disparities researchers.
• Support multidisciplinary centers and networks with local, regional, national, and international shared research resources such as databases, informatics cores, and biospecimen repositories that have meaningful inclusion to foster collaborative translational research relevant to U.S. populations experiencing health disparities.
• Generate interest in NIH health disparity research priorities and research results through onsite activities at NIH campuses to diverse populations of secondary school and undergraduate students.
• Improve health literacy through nationwide initiatives that increase the public’s access to science-based information about specific health disparity illnesses and conditions.

Building Momentum:

• Improve health literacy through nationwide initiatives that increase the public’s access to science-based information about specific illnesses and conditions in culturally appropriate formats that influence minority health.
• Provide overall coordination of community groups to identify minority health and health disparities research priorities for specific illnesses or conditions to disseminate relevant findings and/or foster additional research venues.

Page updated Jan. 12, 2024