UMass Amherst Feature Story Examines Innovative Research to Promote Health Equity

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Aline Gubrium (at left) and Susan Shaw

Three faculty-led teams, including two from the SPHHS, are featured on the UMass Amherst website in a story on the innovative ways UMass Amherst researchers are working to promote health equity. The teams, each of which received a 2024 Large-Scale Integrative Research Award (LIRA) from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement, are seeking to close societal health disparities by studying social determinants, engaging communities, and harnessing the power of the arts.

Professor of Community Health Education Susan Shaw's work in community-based, participatory research as Director of the Center for Community Health Equity Research (CCHER) is highlighted. “Community-based participatory research requires that research partnerships be based on community needs, grounded in understanding the community, and aligned with the mission and goals of the community partner organization,” Shaw explains. “This approach helps rebuild trust in communities that have often experienced extensive research but little investment and can help generate community-led solutions to achieve health equity.”

With funding from the LIRA grant, Shaw and collaborators plan to expand on CCHER’s work by developing a proposal for a National Institutes of Health-supported Center of Excellence in Investigator Development and Community Engagement. Shaw’s collaborators include Kathryn Derose, professor of community health education; Airín Martínez, associate professor of health policy and management; Daniel López-Cevallos, associate professor of community health education; and Linnea Evans, assistant professor of community health education.

The Center of Excellence would provide funding for pilot awards for new investigators—especially those from underrepresented groups—whose research focuses on health equity. The center would also offer hands-on training in participatory approaches; opportunities for individual and peer mentoring; a monthly seminar series and workshops featuring experts on health equity research topics; and opportunities for collaborative research on questions of interest to community members. Participants would learn about proposal development, participatory research approaches, broad dissemination of findings, and how to turn results into community-led action.

The story also examines the work by another group of UMass Amherst researchers to catalyze existing energy and expertise on campus around using Arts-Based Research (ABR) to address inequities in health and the environment. The story notes that ABR is a fast-growing research methodology that uses the systematic process of artmaking as a primary way of understanding and examining experiences—both of researchers and the people they involve in their studies, who are sometimes one and the same.

“Arts-based research is a powerful methodology because of its visceral nature, which aligns nicely with the goals of creating on-the-ground research, intervention, and action in health and environmental research,” explains Professor of Community Health Education Aline Gubrium, who is leading the project. “Art also communicates sensibilities in ways that can’t always be conveyed through text or numbers. Art is also socially connecting. It channels joy and care.”

The team includes Marla Miller, distinguished professor of history; Sally Pirie, professor of child and family studies and director of the CBR Lab; Elizabeth Krause, professor of anthropology; Sarah Goff, professor of health promotion and policy; and Sandy Litchfield, associate professor of architecture. They have individually conducted arts-based work on health and environmental topics ranging from reproductive justice, population politics, and LGBTQ+ youth mental health to aging and environmental humanities. Now they aim to nurture a network of faculty from around campus—including those in fields like engineering, chemistry, or veterinary sciences that may not, on their face, appear to lend themselves to ABR—to build community and generate ideas around arts-based approaches to research.

Read the full feature here.