COMMUNITY INNOVATION LAB

Health equity in action

What is an OHCIL?

An OHC Community Innovation Lab (OHCIL) is a dedicated, trained community group that works directly with research teams, co-creating, reviewing, and strengthening research from the community’s side of the table.

Every OHCIL engagement is a bidirectional exchange. Researchers gain honest, community-generated insight. Community members gain fair compensation (at a minimum of $50/hour), new skills, and a real voice in the research that affects their communities.

Your program isn’t ready until it’s been through community co-creation and review.

Designed and developed for collaboration

OHCIL sits at the intersection of our two portals: Our Healthy Community Research (OHCR), where researchers and sponsors scope certified opportunities, and Our Healthy Community Engage (OHCE), where community members network, train, and choose the research projects they want to join. A Community Innovation Lab is where those two worlds actually meet and work together.

When a certified opportunity launches, OHCIL is where the collaboration happens: trained community groups sit down with research teams to co-create study materials, review programs, and share the local knowledge that makes research relevant. The stronger each portal grows, the more Innovation Labs can take on, and every completed engagement builds trust for the next one.

Bring your project to a
Community Innovation Lab

What makes an opportunity OHCEngage Certified?

An OHCEngage Certified Opportunity is a research engagement that meets OHC’s community-first standards:

Fair
compensation

for every community member’s time and expertise.

Bidirectional
exchange

insights flow to researchers; results and benefits flow back to community in an actionable format that they’ll find useful.

Community
co-creation and review

before the work moves forward.

A structured, transparent six-step process

from consult to final reports for both audiences.

OUR HEALTHY COMMUNITY INNOVATION LAB

What OHCILs deliver

Co-creation and review:

structured sessions that shape study design, materials, and outreach

before launch.

Landscape and regional insight: community-level context on the barriers, assets, and realities

behind the data.

Community intelligence:

findings reported back to both the research team and the community, so the work benefits both.

The Process

Consult with OHC

Researchers reach out to OHC with a potential opportunity for community collaboration, and OHC helps them structure the project properly for sustainability and community consideration. If the consult is given a yes, OHC identifies a suitable community innovation lab for collaboration.

Community Innovation Lab Request

The research team now gives a formal request for working with the community innovation lab. This request includes the scope of the project, specifics on the nature of the collaboration, details on compensation, and a timeline for completion of the work.

Align with the Community Innovation Lab

OHC then creates a work plan and alignment document for work between the community innovation lab and research team. Here, OHC ensures that the research goals are clearly defined, that the work fits with the community innovation lab’s calendar, and that the community innovation lab is ready for the engagement.

Prepare for Community Innovation Lab Engagement

OHC and the research team construct a discussion/engagement guide that aligns with the research goals. This guide will align with the template that the community innovation lab is familiar with. Lastly, the research team will meet with the engagement facilitator, who will give any insight and feedback into the structure of the guide and engagement.

Convene with the Community Innovational Lab

Now, the community innovation lab will begin working on the project. Led by the facilitator, they will stick to the agreed upon guide, timeline, and scope in order to achieve the defined research goals.

Deliver Reports for Researchers and Community

Now, the OHC team will wrap up the project by producing two reports. One for the research team that clearly aligns with the established research goals. The other for the community innovation lab and the wider community. This report gives community members insight into the nature of the work, how it will be used in further research, and how the same material could be used within community to further address health disparities.

OUR HEALTHY COMMUNITY

Community Intelligence Insights

Make the most of the OHC ecosystem:

Plan and Alignment Document

Outlines the work between the community and innovational lab and research to ensure the work is optimized for community engagement

Discussion and Engagement Guide

Outlines the discussion points and key questions to facilitate engagement with the community

OHCR Customer Research Report

States established research goals, engagement process, results, and insights

Community Innovation Lab Report

Gives community members insight into the nature of the work and how it will be used in the community and future research