147: Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Strategies in Health Research Design and Implementation

Understanding strategies to improve engagement of historically underserved and underrepresented communities in evaluation of health prevention, care and treatment can serve as a means to improve health equity. This session will focus on results of a mixed methods sequential exploratory study, designed to examine the intersection of culture, cultural contexts, language needs, and linguistic diversity in health research design and implementation processes. Results from this study inform culturally and linguistically affirming health research design and implementation strategies aimed at improving research engagement.
Strategies identified in this study can be applied and adapted to the field of evaluation. By centering the voices and experiences of underrepresented communities evaluators can improve evaluation design and implementation, improve participant engagement from historically underserved and underrepresented communities, and ultimately improve the quality of the data collected. This study underscores the critical role of culturally and linguistically responsive strategies in advancing health equity.