THURS-006 - Community-driven Legal Epidemiology: Lessons from Improving Engagement and Capacity for Impact

Brief Abstract Summary: Traditional legal epidemiology research is scientifically rigorous and often does not include the voices of those directly impacted by the laws they look into. The AltaMed Community Organizing and Research Engagement (CORE) team engaged residents from southeast Los Angeles to participate in capacity building opportunities that could support involvement in legal epidemiology. A community advisory board was assembled to support the development of policy priority areas, action plans, and determine how residents could incorporate their lived experiences into legal epidemiology. Residents were able to identify 1) policy priority areas, 2) areas of community engagement, 3) limitations to engaging in legal epidemiology, and 4) legal epidemiology questions for future research. Incorporating residents in legal epidemiology requires co-learning to identify areas of capacity and knowledge building and intentional strategy setting to find balance between legal expertise and community knowledge.

Detailed abstract description:

Background: Legal epidemiology is a growing field that looks to understand the impact of law on population health outcomes. Traditional approaches to legal epidemiology tend to be scientifically rigorous and often do not involve those directly affected by the laws they look into. In an effort to understand how community can be incorporated into legal epidemiology, the AltaMed Community Organizing Research Engagement (CORE) team engaged community residents from the southeast Los Angeles region to participate in capacity building opportunities that could support their involvement with legal epidemiology.
Approach: Through a community-centered approach, community residents were recruited to participate in an advisory board that would support the development of policy priority areas and action plans. Participants engaged in determining how other residents could be involved in legal epidemiology and identifying how their lived experiences could be incorporated into legal epidemiology projects. Specific activities included:
1)Capacity building opportunities that focused on understanding legal epidemiology, assessing areas of policy interest, and developing questions that could be used to guide traditional legal epidemiology research.
2)Training sessions to gain a greater understanding of legal epidemiology concepts, capacity building workshops to identify policy priority areas, and additional areas of support.
Key findings: As a result of intentional engagement and capacity-building, community residents identified:1)Healthcare access and housing policy priorities;2)areas for engagement in legal epidemiology projects;3)potential limitations around community participation, and 4)key legal epidemiology questions for future research.
Lessons Learned: It is essential for researchers to ensure continuous engagement of residents in legal epidemiology research to intentionally include the lived experiences of those directly impacted by policies. Incorporating residents in legal epidemiology requires co-learning to identify areas of capacity and knowledge building and intentional strategy setting to find balance between legal expertise and community knowledge. Providing intentional spaces for residents to ask questions and get specific training can support resident participation in the process. These lessons demonstrate that integrating resident perspectives not only strengthens the rigor and equity of legal epidemiology but also increases their practical utility for community advocacy and policy change.

Recommendations: Engaging community residents is necessary, not only to increase the relevance of findings for advocacy and policy reform, but also to support the community’s capacity and knowledge for future research. To advance health equity, future efforts should prioritize resident engagement in legal epidemiology, invest in capacity building of community, and create areas of focus for future research that reflect the lived experiences of the community.