Rebuilding community trust in health systems is a critical area of focus for advancing health equity in historically marginalized communities. Corewell Health West (formerly Spectrum Health Lakeland) researchers leveraged community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods to develop community-defined trust metrics in partnership with community-based organizations. These metrics will track whether health equity investments are building both institutional-level in Corewell Health and neighborhood-level trust over time in communities that have historically been underserved by the health system.
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Contact usLessons Learned
• Lead with humility: The team acknowledged their organization's history of perpetuating system racism, referencing a past acquisition and subsequent closure of the only hospital in Benton Harbor, a predominantly Black community. Understanding that community mistrust was warranted and to avoid biased answers, researchers removed mention of the health system when asking questions related to institutional trust.
• Establish consensus on the value of research: Once the project reached the interview phase, two community researchers from Benton Harbor disengaged from the project. Team members reflected that there would have been more buy-in to sustain community researcher engagement if they had had the option to bring community-driven research questions to the table.
• Build a strong foundation to support community-driven research: While leveraging community researchers' connections to find interviewees does not truly reflect the highest level of community engagement (i.e., community-owned decision-making), it provides a foundation to build on for future community-engaged research efforts.