Health Equity Research for Action

What is Health Equity Research for Action?

Health Equity Research for Action supports:

• community-driven health equity research that helps identify lasting solutions and strengthen the conditions that support health and wellbeing.
• partnerships between communities and researchers that address discrimination, challenge harmful narratives, and fight mis- and disinformation that affects people and communities.

Grants will:

• Focus on the priorities and solutions that communities identify.
• Recognize community knowledge and expertise.
• Generate data that accurately reflects people’s experiences.
• Address the effects of historical and structural barriers to health and wellbeing.
• Strengthen how knowledge is created, shared, and used.
• Build lasting relationships, skills, and systems that support future research.

Research findings will be shared in ways that communities, organizers, movement leaders, advocates, decision-makers, and policymakers can use to inform policy, improve systems, and drive real-world change.

Health Equity Research for Action is a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Morehouse School of Medicine, and the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
 

Why is Community-Driven Research Necessary?

People closest to today’s challenges should be more than research participants; often, they have the clearest understanding of what is needed to create healthier, safer, and more equitable communities and can help guide and improve research. Yet too often, research has overlooked the experience and knowledge of the people most affected by discrimination, harmful policies, and unequal access to opportunity.

By bringing together researchers, residents, advocates, organizers, and local leaders, Health Equity Research for Action supports action-oriented research that turns lived experience into practical solutions.

Health Equity Research for Action recognizes that community engagement exists on a continuum, and all forms of community engagement make research stronger. The program prioritizes community knowledge as an essential part of strong science and lasting change. When communities lead research, they have the greatest opportunity to set priorities, make decisions, and shape solutions that matter to them.

How is Health Equity Research for Action Rooted in Community?

Drawing on lessons from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s history of research funding, we are working in partnership with three community-focused organizations to co-design a national approach to research that advances equity and addresses structural racism. Our partners:

• Founded as a response to the 1965 Watts Uprising, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science is an Historically Black Graduate University and Minority-Serving Institution, and a member of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, with a powerful legacy of racial justice, community-based healthcare education, and scientific excellence located in South Los Angeles.
• Morehouse School of Medicine is an Historically Black Medical School deeply rooted in the American South, shaped by a legacy of Black excellence and community wisdom.
• Flint, Michigan community leaders and the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine pioneered and co-developed a nationally recognized model of community‑driven public health.

Together, we are building systems that help communities.

What Counts as Evidence?

Strong science draws on both rigorous methods and community knowledge. At the same time, the field of research must address deeply ingrained biases that have created gaps in what we know and whose experiences are deemed credible. Valuing community wisdom and experience helps expand what we collectively know, challenges existing assumptions, and helps make evidence useful and meaningful for change-makers.

Health Equity Research for Action supports research methods that are best suited to answer the research questions, including:

• Analyzing the stories that people tell to better understand their meaning
• Focusing on Indigenous voices and their connection to people, land, and ancestors
• Valuing knowledge, data, and insights produced by the community, not about them
• Learning from real-world settings to understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions

Is Health Equity Research for Action Accepting Proposals?

Health Equity Research for Action’s first call for proposals, From Insight to Action: Health Equity Research that Meets This Moment, closed on May 14, 2026. We anticipate releasing our next call for proposals in early 2027.

While Health Equity Research for Action is in its early stage, we are hoping the program’s first call for proposals will sustain and advance health equity research during this critical time, while generating insights that can help shape the program’s future funding priorities and strategies.

Additional resources and program features will be added to this page in the coming months.