CCHER Community-Based Participatory Research Best Practices: CCHER has created a best practices guide for conducting community-engaged and community-based participatory research (CBPR) to ensure ethical and equitable relationships between community partners and UMass researchers. The letter is available here.
UMass Researchers Guide to Building on Community Research Partnerships: Researchers from UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences and Framingham State University published an article in 2022, Building on Community Research Partnerships and Training Students in a Multi-Phase Community-Based Participatory Research Study With Young Women of Cambodian Heritage in Massachusetts. A 2019 article published by CCHER researchers outlines approaches to community-responsive research in a federally-qualified health center in Springfield, MA.
Other UMass Resources:
UMass Amherst SPHHS Office of Public Health Practice and Outreach: The School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) created the Office for Public Health Practice and Outreach (OPHPO) to actively build and sustain its ongoing commitment to campus and community partnerships that advance the community’s health, students’ education, and faculty research and service efforts. Public health in the 21st century needs these ongoing ties between the academic and practice worlds, and OPHPO acts as a liaison between SPHHS and the region.
UMass Amherst Community Engagement Guidelines: The new UMass Community Engagement Guidelines contain resources for institutional support of community-engaged research, teaching, and scholarship, including tenure and promotion guides, resources for partnerships, institutional self-assessment tools, information on building inclusive communities, and much more. This is available on the Office of Faculty Development's Engagement Resources page.
UMass ADVANCE Program: The UMass ADVANCE team has created a variety of resources and tools to help our faculty and campus leadership promote institutional transformation by cultivating faculty equity, inclusion and success. Click here for tools for research collaboration and building inclusive academic communities.
UMass Center for Employment Equity: The Center for Employment Equity conducts research on work-place equity, disseminating results widely to the public, policymakers, agencies, and the media.
Researchers at UMass and elsewhere published Anti-racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices which centers anti-racist community-engaged traditions that BIPOC academics and community members have created through more than a century of collaboration across university and community. It demonstrates both the progress and the work that still needs to be done. There is an open access digital companion to the volume, where authors have shared materials that will help shed further light on their compelling practices, including syllabi, agendas, handouts, worksheets, and additional resources.
CHEI Data: This resource has data on the responses from the MDPH Community Health Equity Survey that examines Massachusetts residents’ experiences with social and structural determinants of health. Contact info is provided to request customized survey data reports for researchers and community organizations and members.
Alliance for Digital Equity Report on Digital Inequity: The Alliance for Digital Equity is a multi-sector coalition that emerged in response to barriers imposed by the shift to online schooling, health care and civic life during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Alliance published a valuable report on digital inequity in western MA, available here.
The Conservation Law Foundation: The CLF works to protect New England's environment using the law, science, and the market, including new research such as the Healthy Neighborhoods Study that explored how new developments change neighborhood conditions, and how those changes impact the health and well-being of the people living there.
Human Impact Partners: New guide for ethical, community-focused research: The research team at Human Impact Partners just released a Research Code of Ethics, in partnership with our community partners. The resource outlines principles the team follows to conduct ethical, responsible, and engaged research in deep relationship with community organizers and people directly impacted by the issues we work on. Please check it out and share it with your fellow students, faculty, and researchers.
Massachusetts Foundation:Blue Cross Blue Shield created a primer that serves as a foundational resource to understand racial and ethnic health inequities in the Commonwealth. This 60-page report includes state-level data by race/ethnicity on food insecurity, housing stability, language ability, access to care, service utilization, and a range of health outcomes including COVID impacts. Read the report here.
MassHealth: Facts and Trends in Enrollment 2022:MassHealth, Massachusetts’s Medicaid program, is a cornerstone of the health insurance landscape in Massachusetts. More than 1 in 4 Massachusetts residents are covered by MassHealth, including 43% of Massachusetts children. Enrollment during the pandemic grew approximately 10%, increasing to nearly 1.98 million members. Despite historic inflation, average costs per member decreased by 2% over the 2021 fiscal year. Find more information here.
The Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute: The Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute (MMPI)—a program of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation—is an independent and nonpartisan source of information and analysis about the Massachusetts Medicaid program, “MassHealth.” The MassHealth and ConnectorCare Enrollment Tracker highlights the most recent enrollment data for the two largest publicly financed health insurance programs in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center: MassBudget makes available independent research and analysis of state budget and tax policies, with particular attention to the effects on low and middle income people in the state.
Pioneer Valley Data: Pioneer Valley Data provides accessible, customizable information for public, nonprofits, municipalities, and charitable foundations with a user-friendly tool to examine and assess a wide range of regional metrics.
Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts: PHIWM provides skills, expertise, and experience to create public health campaigns and system changes in Western MA, including the publication of key health equity reports and community health needs assessments.
Kaiser Family Foundation Disparities Policy Project: The Disparities Policy Project is a program of the KFF that conducts research and policy analysis into health care disparities and strategies to promote equity.