AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community

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.