Creating diverse and equitable research is paramount for any health care organization, but making sure those research teams are equitable themselves is just as critical. That's why national nonprofit AcademyHealth has released a new “Roadmap for Researchers” to help ensure and advance this important work. In this conversation, Margo Edmunds, Ph.D., director of the AcademyHealth Center on Diversity, Inclusion and Minority Engagement, discusses the benefits this vital resource can provide to health care research, and the difference it's already making in health systems, nonprofits, and beyond.

Tom Haederle

The culture of research teams tends to reflect embedded biases about leadership, representation and inclusion. It takes an intentional choice to pivot toward more equitable teams, where power and decision making are shared, more diverse perspectives are represented, and all team members feel seen and heard. That's why a national nonprofit has released a new Roadmap for Researchers to help advance equitable research.

Tom Haederle

The roadmap suggests ways to promote equity in 10 steps across the research life cycle, and it's already making a difference in health systems, nonprofits, trade associations and academic research teams.

Tom Haederle

Welcome to Advancing Health, a podcast from the American Hospital Association. I'm Tom Haederle with AHA Communications. AcademyHealth is a DC-based nonprofit that has created a sort of how-to guide, designed to provide cohesion and a sense of shared mission for health equity researchers and advocates. As we learn in this podcast hosted by Joy Lewis, executive director of the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, the roadmap’s influence is already being felt across a variety of workplaces.

Tom Haederle

Joy's guest is Margo Edmunds, director of the Academy Center on Diversity, Inclusion and Minority Engagement. And now to Joy.

Joy Lewis

I am excited to discuss this new resource that AcademyHealth released earlier this year in April for the health services research community. And it's called the Roadmap for Researchers. And the goal here is that it provides actionable, evidence-based guidance on advancing racial equity perspectives in health systems and policy research. And if I'm remembering correctly, the roadmap is not intended to be didactic, but rather to be used as a tool as researchers are really planning and designing their studies.

Joy Lewis

And it builds in some accountability around ensuring that these perspectives, the racial equity lens is applied to the research. So with that being said, I do want to invite you. I'm super familiar with Academy Health from over the years, but I wondered if you wanted to start by sharing just briefly for our listeners, what AcademyHealth is for those who might be less familiar with your organization.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Absolutely, happy to start there, and it's great to see you, Joy, and I really appreciate the invitation to talk about the roadmap. AcademyHealth is a DC-based national nonprofit organization with individual and organizational members from both public and private sectors, and a portfolio of grants and contracts that translate health systems research into policy and practice in health care and health.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

So very broad mission of translating research findings so that they can be useful and actionable.

Joy Lewis

Right. I like to talk about that as the real world implications or the real world application, rather, of the research. So that the research isn't sitting on a shelf somewhere, but it's being put into, into action. So talk a little bit more about the background, the vision for the roadmap, what was happening at Academy Health, what led to the development of this tool?

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And so the Aetna Foundation when Anne Beal, Dr. Anne Beal was president of the Aetna Foundation. They gave a grant for AcademyHealth to do a competitive process and identify some of these emerging folks who are actually still very active in AcademyHealth. People like Rachel Hardeman and Jameta Barlow and Reggie Tucker-Seeley started with us 10 years ago.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And to diversify the workforce with folks like this and then began to bring them together once a year for a networking reception. And over the years, we've now grown to about 400 people and their mentors, who come to a party reception every year, it’s turned into more of a party as it's gone along.

Joy Lewis

Who's going to say no to an AcademyHealth party, right?

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Oh my goodness.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

We just had our most recent one was in Baltimore and it just rocked. So it's a very nice opportunity for people to meet each other in a not always quiet, but in a safer space, where everybody is there because they believe in mentoring and believe in what we're trying to do. So that has been going on for 10 years.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

I think it's really challenging us to articulate who we want to be and how we want to be with each other. So that's where this roadmap came. I was getting a lot of calls from people, and I felt I can't keep answering individual calls as efficiently as I might be able to write something. So I'm a former professor, so I wrote a 10-step process.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And the first step is get your team in a room and look around and see if you have the right people in the room. It's very practical advice. Just has a list of questions for people to consider. We don't tell them what to do, we just say, here's how to think about it.

Joy Lewis

But you were able to get your, to your point, your leadership, your thought leadership, your point of view out there in the world for others to really, consider how they might adopt and utilize the resources you're putting in front of them. So, could you go one step further in providing an example of how an organization or a researcher would in fact utilize this resource?

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Well, we're finding out about that Joy, because more and more folks are beginning to use it. Thanks to you and to the Collaborative, I think we have more people joining all the time. But Indiana University, for example, Saint Louis University and Medical University of South Carolina, are all using it as core curriculum in their policy classes.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

So this is how to do the right kind of research. This is how to do racial equity research. And NCQA, Rachel Harrington was one of the reviewers. And so she has been very helpful and using it at NCQA with her teams and the equity teams, and the other folks who may be new to the area and less comfortable, afraid they're going to make a mistake.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Altarum Institute, which is a contract research organization in Northern Virginia. Altarum has a page on their website, and they are also using it with their staff, and with teams of folks. So I think it could be used across settings. We're not sure how it's being used in clinical settings yet, but we think, you know, we tried to chunk the material into 15-minute segments, knowing that that's about how long somebody might have a break, and they could read a couple pages and think about some questions.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

So it's meant to be versatile, practical and kind of in the eyes of the beholder, if you know what I mean.

Joy Lewis

Right, right, right. And I'm glad to hear you're moving further upstream to academia and in the classroom environment. With that, you mentioned the Health Equity Strategic Learning Collaborative that we stood up here. The association, which is exactly, you know, the audience you would be targeting for this kind of a resource. These are health services researchers who are focused on health equity, specifically.

Joy Lewis

And we have a particular focus on even going one step further and really trying to find those researchers of color who are proximate to many of the research opportunities in the health equity space, and who really would benefit from having this network where, frankly, historically, much of their research might not have as much visibility or as much of an opportunity to be really put into action in mainstream.

Joy Lewis

So, you've been active at that table. Really appreciate your partnership. And so I wondered if you would share with our listenership, what are some of the benefits of being a part of the Health Equity Strategic Learning, you know, Collaborative.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Thank you for asking, Joy, because I've been wanting to thank you over and over again, for inviting me to be part of the Collaborative, because it meant a lot to me, not just for the networking and for the safe space to talk to other people, but it was an endorsement of the work. And I think a lot of us, we talk about this, how isolating it can be to do equity work.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

You don't feel, especially if you don't have a team of folks or you don't have the kind of the team that you want, or enough resources. And so I think that the time I've spent with the Collaborative has been well spent. I feel like it's a time when I can see people I've known for years, like, don't get to see often enough.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

But it's also a place where there's a common understanding that it's important to continue this work, even when it's challenging. In fact, the more challenging it gets, we have to take care of ourselves and not burnout. But we also need to continually renew our commitment. And that's a really great place to do it. And it also has been the very first place where I spoke publicly about the roadmap outside of AcademyHealth.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And I've gotten great responses from the colleagues that you invited to be part of the network. So thank you for doing them.

Joy Lewis

No. Great. We're looking forward to really learning also from the researchers in that network, how much more can the Collaborative bring benefit to them? We certainly see it as bi-directional. So thanks for putting this resource in their hand. Are there any other initiatives or offerings or spinoffs that you see coming out of the research roadmap?

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

We’ve been doing some word-of-mouth dissemination and trying to collect stories so that we know how people are finding this helpful and where they like us to push in another direction. But one thing that I initiated, you know, kind of a, I like online tools and I like open access. So we have, again, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we have an equity and innovation resource hub, which you can find at the AcademyHealth website.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

But these are meant to be companion documents. And former professor I'm thinking about you want something that's online with a lot of deep content. It's got 25 pages, I think of resources of peer-reviewed articles and playbooks and lots of other resources that people can use. The Equity and Innovation Resource Hub is searchable by media, so if you want a video to show in your class or at your staff meeting, you can go find a video that's related to kind of introducing the content.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And we also have infographics and playbooks and peer-reviewed articles and great literature and other resources that have been vetted and are curated by Academy Health. So I think a lot of people, when they start thinking, oh my goodness, I'm teaching a health equity course, where am I going to start? We want to have vetted and curated that material so that they know where to start.

Joy Lewis

No, that's awesome. Thanks for doing that heavy lifting up front for folks. So with this particular resource though, the Roadmap for Researchers, what is your hope, right, in terms of how this could potentially change the design of health services research, potentially lead to better health policy, even.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

So, my hope would be for 10 years from now that the field will have evolved to a much more inclusive and representative group of people who really value diversity.

Joy Lewis

Diversity of all, all kinds, diversity in its broadest definition.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

I've talked with some of our folks who work on the Hill and work in different kinds of environments, and I think that health equity or equity are the terms that seem to be the most acceptable. When you talk about multicultural and actually, you know, multi in many ways, multi-lived experience, people who are coming from first generation backgrounds into the research community, that they will feel that they have the kind of support and acknowledgment and then they're valued.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

And I think if we can acknowledge that people's backgrounds and where they came from and what their parents did and what languages are spoken at home, but also what might have happened to them on the way to work, you know, you might have gotten some side eyes from people. You might, I mean, this is a very common experience that I think a lot of white people do not have and do not appreciate and don't acknowledge.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

So my hope would be that in 10 years there's been enough personal transformation and insight and behavior change that everybody would feel welcome. Ten years is pretty fast, but I know people can change. I'm originally a clinical psychologist, as you know, and I know that people can change, and I know the cultures can change. And sometimes in a very short period of time.

Joy Lewis

While you've leaned into hope in its strongest definition, HOPE, all caps, because that's hope that you're leaving with us, Margo. I trust your hope becomes a reality because I think we could all, you know, lift all boats as we go here.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Well, we need each other to do that, Joy. You know, and that's why I'm, again, really pleased and honored and grateful that you created the network. Because it's important, I think, for all of us to use the platforms that we have and use our voice in the most effective way possible. And I've seen people in the network, talking about things that I have not heard about before, the work that they're doing in their own institutions, and how thoroughly it can be done when you have the support system to do it.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

It's amazing.

Joy Lewis

Well, thank you, and thanks for, spending some time with me this afternoon as we really lean into helping our health services researchers writ large, really navigate the roadmap and think about its application to their upcoming body of work. So thank you so much, Margo.

Margo Edmunds, Ph.D.

Thank you for the opportunity, Joy. Great to see you.

Tom Haederle

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