Community-Engaged Research

Research is stronger when communities help shape it.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities remain underrepresented in health research, leaving important gaps in our understanding of their health experiences, needs, and priorities. Language barriers, limited access to research opportunities, mistrust, and the aggregation of diverse populations into broad racial categories can deepen these inequities.

At Asian Women for Health (AWFH), we believe community-engaged research offers a path forward. By bringing together community knowledge, lived experience, and research expertise, we can build more equitable approaches to understanding health—and ensure communities have a meaningful role in shaping the research that affects them.

Our Research Principles

Our community-engaged research approach is guided by principles that center equity, shared power, and community expertise throughout the research process.

Center Community Voice

We create opportunities for community members to identify priorities, share lived experiences, and contribute their expertise to the questions and decisions that shape research.

Co-Design

We collaborate with community and research partners throughout the research process—from developing questions and culturally relevant materials to recruitment, implementation, interpretation, and sharing findings.

Shared Decision-Making

We create structures for community partners to have meaningful influence over research priorities, approaches, and decisions—not simply participate in a study after those decisions have already been made.

Address Barriers to Participation

We identify cultural, linguistic, logistical, and trust-related barriers that can limit participation and work with partners to develop approaches that make research more accessible and inclusive.

Build Equitable Partnerships

We connect community members, community-based organizations, researchers, and healthcare institutions to build relationships grounded in transparency, shared learning, and mutual accountability.

Turn Research Into Action

We bring findings back to communities and use what we learn to inform health education, resources, programs, advocacy, and future research—so knowledge can lead to meaningful change.

Representation matters. But equity requires more than participation.

Equitable research is not simply about who participates. It is also about whose knowledge is valued, who has a voice in decisions, and who benefits from what we learn.

Community-engaged research creates space for communities to contribute their expertise throughout the research process. This can lead to more relevant questions, culturally and linguistically responsive approaches, and knowledge that better reflects—and can be used by—the communities research is intended to serve.

The AWFH team with Dorchester community members during a Community Listening Session exploring the impact of Carney Hospital’s closure on the community.

We’re designing for the future.

Community-engaged research gives us an opportunity not only to improve how research is done, but to imagine what it could become.

At AWFH, we believe innovation starts with curiosity: asking better questions, testing new approaches, and being willing to rethink systems and practices that no longer serve all of our communities. By connecting community knowledge with research, technology, and new ideas, we can explore solutions that are more responsive to how people live, connect, and access care.

The future of science, medicine, research, and policy – is something we can help shape together.

Current Projects

BRAIN-V Project


A community-engaged research initiative advancing brain health awareness and access to culturally and linguistically responsive information within Boston’s Vietnamese community.

Chinese Community Bone Health Initiative

A community-based pilot that partnered with Chinese-serving organizations to deliver culturally and linguistically responsive bone health education and evaluate changes in knowledge, confidence, and prevention behaviors.

Past Projects

All of Us Research Program

Working toward ensuring that our community is included in research studies that may lead to better treatments and cures.

ACCESS-PD

Advancing comprehensive care and enhancing service standards in Parkinson’s Disease among Asian Americans.

Community Based Research

Improving the quality of life and life expectancy of Asian Americans by understanding their perspectives, researching barriers to care and increasing their participation in health and medical research.