With the growing trend of community-based research, academic-based Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) often lack appropriate community-based ethical considerations in their reviews. Thus, the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) established an in-house community IRB to ensure that AAPCHO or member-initiated research is relevant to its community health centers (CHCs) and their Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander (AA&NHOPI) patients. Evaluations conducted at the IRB’s one-year mark demonstrated members and applicants’ satisfaction with the IRB’s performance. Evaluation results and best practices show that AAPCHO’s IRB promotes community leadership and research capacity and ensures community-applicable research plans.

Research conducted to benefit communities is often done without community involvement, threatening its relevance for the groups the studies purport to serve. A great need exists for education of both researchers and community members on how research can be more appropriately conducted in partnership with community members. This paper presents Community Criteria for Research Participation developed by community health centers (CHCs) with input from academic partners to support CHCs’ capacity to conduct research of community significance.