Improving Recruitment, Engagement, and Access for Community Health Equity for BRAIN: Next-Generation Human Neuroimaging Research and Beyond (REACH for BRAIN)

Project Description

Improving Recruitment, Engagement, and Access for Community Health Equity for BRAIN Next-Generation Human Neuroimaging Research and Beyond (REACH for BRAIN) will utilize community engagement with Black and Latinx stakeholder networks, to co-create evidence-based solutions and ethical guidance to expand the inclusiveness of participation in NIH BRAIN research and human neuroimaging studies more broadly. Utilizing a stakeholder network, Outcome Map, and Theory of Change (ToC), and initially targeting recruitment for research with the BRAIN Initiative supported Connectome 2.0 project, community members, neuroscientists, and neuroethics experts will co-develop and implement a targeted, community-led and participant-centered deliverables to increase the participation of underrepresented and minoritized groups in neuroimaging research.

Given the fraught history of scientific racism and biological essentialism in brain science, Aim 1 efforts to create appropriately diverse participation in neuroimaging will be accompanied by the Aim 2’s creation of Working Group consensus guidance and applied tools to guide neuroimaging researchers on how to measure and report on participants’ sociodemographic identifiers.

Project outcomes include: 

• A story about REACH for BRAIN posted by the Athinoula A. Martinos Center.
• Webinar on "Emerging Portable Technology for Neuroimaging Research in New Field Settings: Legal & Ethical Challenges"