Table 7 Best practices (lessons learned) to equitably implement behavioral interventions and engage community organizations

• Principal investigator should identify as a community-based researcher or health equity researcher and be familiar with related principles, frameworks, and methods.

• Identify areas of synergy across academic and community partners, ensuring a match with CBO’s mission, priorities, and/or service model.

• Identify funding mechanism and resources for paying community partners for their involvement; if possible, funding should not have many restrictions on priority focus areas.

• Establish and maintain open communication, mutual respect, and professionalism between academic team and community organizations – through all phases.

Post funding/Pre-implementation

• Set up memorandum of understanding (MOU) between partners to allocate adequate funds for program implementation, specify roles, deliverables, etc.

• Diversify academic team; team members should identify with focus/priority population.

• Hire community members as implementors who have flexible schedules to accommodate participant preferences.

• Identify CBO’s resources (i.e., internal, external) that could potentially be used for program promotion and implementation.

• Provide CBO administrators with program management skills or tools to engage with implementors and end-users.

• Cross-train implementors in both outreach/recruitment and program delivery.

• Academic and community partners co-create, tailor and/or adapt program content, materials, and data collection tools or forms.

• Identify private space for program delivery or to conduct study interviews that is feasible for community organization and members.

Throughout implementation/Post-implementation

• Identify a point person that implementors can contact if there is a participant who feels unduly distressed or needs additional support (e.g., referral to other local resources).

• Provide ongoing technical support throughout the implementation process for implementors.

• Provide alternative learning methods for implementors (e.g., practice, role modeling, observe program delivery and provide immediate feedback).

• Support CBO outreach and recruitment efforts (e.g., accompany implementors to connect with new external organizations, provide recruitment letter templates, etc.).

• Identify alternate funding revenues for sustainability or key program components that can be integrated into current CBO services.