Solutions to Conducting Research That Matters to Practice in Rural Communities
| Solution | Solution Description | Challenge Domain Addressed |
|---|---|---|
| Steering Committee and/or Advisory Board | A group of multidisciplinary rural clinicians, health system leaders and/or community partners that meets monthly to inform research priorities and review, approve and provide feedback on proposed studies | Topical Investigator Cultural |
| Regional Engagement Specialist | Research staff with lived experience (eg, rural, low-income, demographics representative of community) who have ties to the rural community and live/work in the rural community where the research is conducted. These individuals serve as boundary spanners between academic investigators and rural communities | Investigator Cultural Community |
| Community Health Needs Assessment | Initiatives conducted in collaboration with a local community organization or health system to assess the needs of the community and align research methods and topics to those needs. In many cases, these can support existing needs assessments done by local public health departments and health systems. | Topical Community |
| Regional Listening Sessions | Facilitated dialogues with clinic, health system, and community leaders in rural communities to inform research priorities and topics | Topical Community |
| Annual member meetings | Annual full-day in-person meeting for rural clinicians and network partners to provide feedback on studies through small group discussions and poster sessions, learn about new research methodologies, hear about study findings and network with investigators | Topical Community |
| Partner panel for research | A group of clinicians or network partners who agree to be solicited for short surveys, interviews and/or focus groups to gauge interest in specific topics, inform research adaptations and build trust | Topical Cultural Community |
| Healthcare extension service | Modeled from U.S. Department of Agriculture, the extension service focuses on local partnerships to identify urgent health care goals and align activities to achieve them through practice facilitation and training an implementation workforce | Topical Community Investigator |