Flint to Co-design National Health Equity Research Program with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

FLINT, Michigan — Flint is no stranger to being studied. This time, the city is helping decide what gets studied, and why.

Michigan State University’s (MSU) College of Human Medicine, in partnership with Flint community leaders, has been selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help co-design a national Health Equity Research for Action (HERA) program, a major philanthropic investment aimed at reshaping how health equity research is funded, governed, and translated into real-world change.

Unlike traditional research models that position universities as lead decision-makers, this effort places Flint residents and community leaders at the center of determining funding priorities, research questions, and review processes from the start.

“This is not community engagement as an afterthought,” says Kent Key, associate professor of public health at MSU. “The community is sitting at the table where decisions are actually made,  not in an advisory role, but as part of the governance structure itself.”

The initiative builds on decades of community-engaged research in Flint, particularly lessons learned through the Flint water crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Key, those crises exposed how deeply public health outcomes are tied to who holds decision-making power and who is excluded from it.

“In Flint, we learned firsthand that this wasn’t just a water crisis,” Key says. “It was a democracy crisis first. When community voices were removed from decision-making, the public health consequences followed.”

That history informs how the HERA coordinating center will operate. Rather than relying on community advisory boards — which often have limited authority — Flint community members will participate directly in reviewing proposals, shaping funding calls, and determining which research is prioritized. Nadia Abuelezam, associate professor of epidemiology at MSU, says that shift is intentional.

“Funding decisions are usually driven by institutional or federal priorities,” Abuelezam says. “What we’re doing here is reversing that. We’re allowing community needs and visions to guide what research gets funded in the first place.”

Through this coordinating center, Flint will help shape health equity research priorities nationwide, influencing which projects receive funding and how success is defined. The program is designed to move beyond documenting disparities toward action-oriented research that leads to policy change, systems reform, and sustainable community-led solutions.

“This is not about continuing to collect data that tells us what we already know — that inequities exist,” Abuelezam says. “This is about what happens next.”

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s investment comes at a time when federal funding for equity-focused research has been reduced nationwide. According to Abuelezam, philanthropy has become increasingly critical to sustaining health equity work, and this program reflects a willingness to redistribute power, not just dollars.

“They’re saying, ‘We don’t have all the answers,’” she says. “And they’re trusting communities who have been doing this work for decades to help lead the way.”

For Flint residents, the goal is not research that ends up in academic journals, but work that leads to tangible improvements in local policy and, potentially, to new models of care that can be replicated nationally.

“When institutions start changing how they operate, their policies, procedures, and systems. That’s success,” Key says. “And when community members see themselves reflected in those decisions, that’s how trust is built.”

The coordinating center builds on existing infrastructure in Flint, including cross-sector partnerships, co-governance models, and community ethics review processes that extend beyond the life of individual grants. Those structures, developed in response to past harms, positioned Flint as a strong candidate to help lead this national effort.

“What Flint has experienced and how the community responded matters,” Key says. “Those lessons are now informing how health equity research can be done differently across the country.”

As the program progresses, Flint residents will not only help define research priorities but also clarify what equity in public health looks like in practice.

“This is about making the meal together,” Key says. “Not deciding everything first and asking for input later.”