Over the past decade, Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) teams have demonstrated the power of CER to generate actionable evidence and advance health and well-being in communities across the country. As the policy, funding, and public health landscapes evolve, what role will CER play in shaping the future?
In a 2020 IRL blog post, Kelli Caseman reflected on the power of combining research and storytelling to advance policy change. Looking back six years later, she shares how CER has evolved, and why she believes its future depends on continuing to build trust, share power, and connect research with the communities it serves.
“The program left a lasting impression on me, and its core message still resonates—interweaving research and storytelling is a powerful catalyst for driving policy change. While the intersection of research and advocacy has seen seismic shifts since 2020, the evolution of CER has offered a promising move toward true epistemic agency. In an era marked by rising misinformation and institutional distrust, leaning into hyper-local, culturally concordant, community-based participatory research is a vital antidote to public skepticism. I stay optimistic because I see relationships building and evolving to actively redistribute power among individual contributors. As public health paradigms and communication modalities shift, I hope organizations like AcademyHealth build on this momentum, continuing to bridge research, policy, and the communities we serve. Researchers and advocates have learned to speak each other’s languages. As our shared landscape continues to shift, articulating and amplifying this knowledge to drive health equity is our most powerful path forward.”
- Kelli Caseman, MA (University of Alaska College of Indigenous Studies; RWJF Change Leadership Programs Alumni Network), member of Team West Virginia, Cohort 3
Farrah Jacquez discusses how efforts to strengthen participatory research methods are creating new opportunities for researchers to build a stronger foundation for CER, including through the collaboration between the IRL program and the open-access Journal of Participatory Research Methods, which she launched with colleagues to support the sharing of methods, tools, and processes used in participatory research.
“One area of work that I am especially excited about is the collaboration between the IRL program and the Journal of Participatory Research Methods. The Journal was founded because traditional journals often focus on research findings and leave little room to describe how CER is actually done. Yet those details are often what community research teams need most. One bright spot I see for the future is the growing recognition that participatory methods deserve scholarly attention in their own right. Researchers, funders, and journals are showing greater interest in understanding which participatory approaches work, why they work, and how they can be adapted in different settings. That shift will strengthen both the science and practice of CER by helping us learn across projects and build a stronger body of knowledge about how to do this work well.”
- Farrah Jacquez, PhD (University of Cincinnati; Journal of Participatory Research Methods), member of Team Cincinnati, Cohort 1
Drawing on findings from their recent study, Racial Disparities and Personal Responsibility Incentives in Medicaid, Team Indiana reflects on how CER can help policymakers better understand the real-world effects of policy decisions.
“In our recent article, we examined Indiana's Medicaid expansion program and found persistent racial disparities in access. Our findings demonstrate how CER can help policymakers anticipate and address the effects of federal Medicaid policy changes as states implement new eligibility reviews, work requirements, and other administrative processes. Engaging communities and incorporating lived experience into policy design and evaluation are critical to identifying inequities early, understanding how administrative burdens are experienced, and informing more equitable policies.”
- David Craig, PhD (Indiana University Indianapolis; Indiana CTSI); Elaine Hernandez, PhD, MPH (Indiana University Bloomington); and Ivan Douglas Hicks, PhD (The AfricaLogical Institute and Center for Africana Studies and Culture; IU Indianapolis), members of Team Indiana, Cohort 7
Reflecting on her IRL experience, Luisa Blanco Yarnal shares how community-based digital interventions can help expand the reach and impact of CER while improving the health and economic well-being of communities.
“I am hopeful about the work ahead as I reflect on my experience as an IRL Fellow, where my team and I designed and implemented Mind Your Money, the first digital, mobile-phone-based financial education program culturally and linguistically tailored to Latino adults in the United States. Community-Based Digital Interventions can be highly effective in promoting behavioral change in underserved and hard-to-reach communities by linking different service systems. Leveraging digital tools to empower parents to make better economic and health decisions for themselves and their children has strong potential to improve their wellbeing.”
- Luisa Blanco Yarnal, PhD, MBA (Pepperdine University), member of Team Los Angeles, Cohort 4
Looking ahead, Irene Yen sees the future of CER extending beyond individual research projects and into how the next generation of public health leaders is trained, highlighting efforts to embed community engagement, organizing, and power-building into public health education.
“I’m very excited to be a steward of the Health and Power Organizing Project alongside Sarah Gollust, Jamila Michener, Paul Fleming, and Zinzi Bailey. We’re organizing on campuses to increase community-engagement, community organizing, and power-building in public health curriculum. We’re applying key principles raised up by IRL to center community voices, because progress on critical public health issues depends on authentic engagement. Come join us!”
- Irene Yen, PhD, MPH (University of California, Merced), member of Team San Francisco, Cohort 1
From policy change and cross-sector collaboration, IRL alumni envision a shared future in which authentic partnership, adaptability, and lived experience are not peripheral to CER, but foundational. As the field continues to evolve, AcademyHealth remains committed to advancing this vision alongside IRL alumni, communities, and partners across sectors. For more reflections, read blogs one and two in our Celebrating 10 Years with IRL series.
Explore IRL contributions to participatory research methods
IRL scholars have contributed to two special issues of the Journal of Participatory Research Methods. Both reflect a commitment not only to conducting CER, but also to improving the methods that make that work possible.
- Dismantling Structural Racism: Vol. 5, Issue 2, 2024
- Participatory Dissemination: Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2026