Data Collection

Ensure community and lived experience experts are involved in developing the recruitment strategy, recruitment materials, and data collection instruments.

Reflect on the racial/ethnic identities of your study population and research question(s), e.g., ensure that your data collection strategy allows for measuring racial health equity impacts.

Critically think through how you will collect and record information about race/ethnicity and other social identities.

Consider your team and opportunities for concordance between those delivering the intervention (if intervention research) or collecting data and communities involved in the research (e.g. racial concordance, language concordance).

Think about potential unintended consequences and harms of data collection in racially minoritized communities; establish harm mitigation policies or consider not collecting the data.

Strive for race/ethnicity data to be self-reported (unless not possible or not appropriate for research question).

If you are collecting race/ethnicity data as a proxy for racism or other experiences, consider directly collecting those data or at minimum stating your intention to use race/ethnicity as a proxy.

Use instruments that are culturally competent, cognitively tested among study populations and translated for those who speak a language other than English.

Critically review how you compensate research participants (whether community members or staff) and other individuals involved in your research, such as advisors.

Use a community-based approach for data collection to help ensure sensitive information (e.g., food security status, housing status) is collected in a trauma-informed way.

Hire community members and train them in data collection and citizen science.

Recruit participants who have the most to gain from the research.