Community-Engaged Participatory Research Checklist

What is community-engaged participatory research?

Community-engaged participatory research is a collaborative research approach that equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process to address issues affecting the target community or communities.

How to use this checklist:

This checklist is designed to support you in conducting research that is equitable, inclusive, and community-centered. We encourage you to revisit it regularly throughout your project to ensure that your approach reflects best practices in community-engaged research. Use it as both a planning tool and a reflective guide to deepen your commitment to shared power, accountability, and care.

Groundwork

• Learn about the target community’s culture(s) and history to contextualize – attitudes, beliefs, or apprehensions that are present
  • Acknowledge any past harm your institution or others have caused, and communicate how your team plans to address mistrust and repair relationships
  • Use an asset-based approach, taking note of the communities existing strengths, supports, and systems
  • Examine existing efforts to determine whether outside involvement could disrupt what social infrastructure already exists
  • Recognize the complexity of community identity, including intersecting identities, historical trauma, and intra-community differences that shape trust and participation
• Learn about the members of the research team, their cultural backgrounds, and their lived experiences to explore the perspectives and potential biases being brought into the work

Proposal Development

• Invite the community to co-lead issue identification and question formation
  • When researchers honor the community’s priorities, even when they differ from their own, they can help drive meaningful, lasting improvements in health
    • Consider potential ethical concerns and community impacts and outline protections
  • Invite collaboration early in the concept development process
    • Plan for equitable governance structures (e.g. advisory boards, steering committees)
    • Be clear about the commitment and compensation related to participation, as well as the researcher or institution “ask”
    • Seek to bring together a diverse group of people with different skills, ideas, and lived experience, and one common goal
    • ⭐Aim to include a community partner as a PI where possible
  • Build in resources (time, budget, funds) for community participation
    • Consider practical support, like childcare, food, transportation, interpretation services, resource connections, and training opportunities
  • Begin co-developing a dissemination plan for findings with community
    • Intend to make all findings publicly accessible, including translating jargon into common language
  • To ensure continuity and build trust within communities, include sustainability goals in the initial narrative or proposal
    • Plan for infrastructure handoffs (e.g. training local leaders, transitioning technology leadership)
    • Consider multiyear funding and sustained compensation strategies that go beyond the project timeline
  • Co-create shared goals and expectations with community before finalizing the proposal
    • Discuss with community what kind of findings matter most, who should receive them, and what formats are best suited for sharing

Budgeting

• Allocate funds for community partner compensation (stipends, honoraria)
  • Understand the processes through which invoices will be paid, including the channels or systems funds must move through, average time-to-payment, available payment types, and institutional limitations on who can be paid
• For meetings and in-person events, include funds for space, childcare, transportation, food, and interpretation/transcription services
• Include funds for community-friendly dissemination activities (e.g. town halls, printed materials, translation)
• Plan for community capacity-building opportunities (e.g. training, co-learning)
  • Offer workshops on research methods, advocacy, storytelling, grant writing, or evaluation
  • Connect collaborators to networks that offer fellowships, leadership programs, or technical assistance

Contracting

• Develop clear and equitable agreements or Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) that reflect mutual expectations, deliverables, and timelines
  • Involve community partners in the creation and review of contracts to ensure they reflect the community’s needs, values, and preferred terms
  • Outline fair, unbiased procedures for early termination, data withdrawal, and amendments to the agreement
• Include payment schedules, rates, and compensation policies for all contributors
  • Consider the hidden costs of collaboration when deciding on compensation rates (e.g. emotional toll, time burden, privacy loss)
• Define decision-making processes, including which decisions require full consensus, what can be delegated, and how disagreements will be resolved
  • ⭐Embed accountability mechanisms that empower community members to raise concerns and seek remedies if commitments are not upheld
• Ensure that roles and responsibilities are not only clearly defined but also equitably distributed
• Explicitly address intellectual property, data ownership, authorship, and the use of community-generated knowledge
  • Include an authorship plan in the agreement to clarify roles, order, and criteria for contribution
  • State explicitly how data and publications will be attributed, used, and shared
• Revisit contracts or MOUs regularly to ensure continued alignment and relevance

Data Collection & Analysis

• Train community members as data collectors, co-investigators, and evaluators
• Choose or adapt tools that reflect community literacy levels, preferred languages, and cultural norms
  • Pilot tools in collaboration with the community and revise based on their feedback
  • Implement trauma-informed practices, particularly when collecting sensitive or health-related information
  • Build in the flexibility to pause, modify, or withdraw tools based on ongoing feedback or community concern
  • Use community-preferred communication methods (e.g. WhatsApp, flyers, audio recordings) to update on data collection progress
• Design informed consent processes that reflect community preferences and literacy levels
  • Consider group consent protocols when applicable
  • Ensure that participants understand how their data will be used, who will have access, and what rights they retain
  • Offer participants ways to opt out, edit their data, or learn about findings derived from their contributions
• Involve community collaborators in qualitative coding sessions or interpretation meetings
• Host analysis workshops to co-identify themes, patterns, and narratives that matter to the community
  • Avoid deficit framing or language that reinforces stigma by asking the community to help revise language and interpretations
• Share early findings in accessible formats and incorporate feedback before finalizing results
• Track power dynamics in data interpretation and actively work to rebalance them by amplifying community perspectives
  • Build in regular checkpoints to assess whose perspectives among the team are dominant, and thereby shaping the narrative told by the data
  • Encourage all research team members to engage in reflexive journaling, dialogue, or other exercises to examine their position, biases, and assumptions
  • Share preliminary themes or findings with community members for input, correction, and/or expansion
  • Be intentional about asking community members to co-write or approve narrative sections of reports, especially those that describe findings or implications

Dissemination

• Create materials that accommodate different literacies and preferences, e.g. infographics, zines, social media posts, oral recordings, short animations, podcasts
  • Translate written materials into relevant languages and provide audio versions
  • Use visuals (e.g., photos, maps, timelines) to increase engagement and accessibility
  • ⭐Some creative dissemination ideas could include storytelling sessions with collaborators, interactive booths at festivals or farmer’s markets, school presentations, or collaborative photo exhibits
• Acknowledge contributions meaningfully, whether through authorship, stipends, or verbal recognition
  • Recognize community collaborators as co-authors or presenters in academic and community-facing venues
• Make findings publicly accessible via open-access journals, community newsletters, or accessible online repositories
• Discuss next steps: what should be done with the results, and how can they inform policy, programs, or further research?
  • Allow community members to define their own key takeaways and action items from the findings

Sustainability

• Regularly check-in with collaborators to assess partnership progress and efficacy and shift as needed
  • Co-design a final evaluation to check how the collaboration felt and what could be improved
• Schedule post-project gatherings or debrief sessions to reflect on what was learned and what remains
• Ask community partners what long-term connection looks like to them (e.g. partnership, friendship, mentorship)
• Maintain informal relationships through check-ins, invitations to events, or newsletter updates
• Leave tools for communities to use in future data collection or organizing
• Work with community partners to explore creative ways to continue core aspects of the work even without major funding (e.g. peer networks, local policy influence, curriculum creation)
  

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Resources

Achieving Health Equity and Systems Transformation Through Community Engagement: A Conceptual Model  (NAM)

The Principles of Trustworthiness | Center For Health Justice (AAMC)

Principles of Community Engagement—3rd Edition (AAMC)

Strategies, Frameworks, Tools, and Reports for Creating Change (Equity in the Center )