Headline
Tangible recommendations for health care organizations and policymakers can support more effective community engagement initiatives.
Context
Although health care organizations have increasingly expressed interest in improving community engagement (CE), the implementation of CE initiatives has been highly inconsistent. Initiating National Strategies for Partnership, Inclusion, and Real Engagement (INSPIRE) is a coalition of organizations and people with lived experience (PWLE) committed to helping health care organizations implement meaningful CE initiatives. This brief details findings and recommendations for improving community engagement in the U.S. health system from INSPIRE’s interviews and listening sessions with over 300 health care professionals and PWLE.
Findings
This brief highlighted INSPIRE’s research findings, including: (1) health care organizations struggle to incorporate and sustain engagement with PWLE; (2) the factors that contribute to making the case for health care organizations to conduct more meaningful CE; (3) promising practices of CE, such as equitable compensation and early engagement; (4) policy options and sustainable funding help sustain CE efforts; and (5) the need for health care professionals to receive training in CE.
The brief also includes recommendations to advance health care organizations’ efforts related to CE, to address implementation gaps, including (1) expanding CE training and technical assistance for health care professionals; (2) leadership capacity-building opportunities for PWLE to build partnerships with health care entities; (3) exploring the internal preparation for health care organizations to launch CE initiatives; and (4) push for more federal, state, and organization policies that require health care organizations to be involved in CE.
Takeaways
Health care organizations are interested in incorporating more CE initiatives into their work to improve health equity. The findings and recommendations of this brief will help health care leaders, providers, policymakers, and PWLE better understand why meaningful CE initiatives are worth investing in and what types of planning and support are needed to conduct these initiatives.