Working Together at the Nexus of Health, Humanities, and Arts Through an Academic-Community Research Collaborative

Achieving health equity demands a fundamental reexamination of the human experience. The humanities and arts offer a useful lens that reveals and informs blind spots in our understanding of health and health equity across diverse populations. The Health Humanities and Arts Research Collaborative (HHARC) at The University of Kansas (KU) is an innovative model connecting educational institutions with practice settings in co-created academic-community partnerships. Launched in the midst of the pandemic, HHARC creates connections and leverages affinities within health, wellness, and health equity by bringing together researchers, community members, and students as equal partners; connecting teams to funding opportunities; and offering a platform for collaboration that identifies and addresses timely, common interests.

HHARC fosters opportunities to work interprofessionally, bridging the silos across health, humanities, and the arts, between disciplines and campuses, and between educational institutions and practice communities. In its first year, HHARC has built inclusive representation from 237 scholars and practitioners across disciplines (e.g., anthropology, architecture, bioethics, film and media studies, history, and journalism) and professions (e.g., nursing, social work, medicine, respiratory therapy), 75 departments across the KU-Lawrence and KU Medical Center campuses, 10 universities (e.g., tribal university), and 4 public agencies and institutions (e.g., Latinx serving agency), and from the U.K. and Perú. Affinity groups are fluid and responsive to current events and challenges (e.g., COVID-19 and health disparities; health communication; poetry, storytelling, and wellness).

Strategies will be shared to support development of interprofessional health humanities and arts networks between universities and communities that advance health equity by fostering patient/family engagement and community collaboration. Examples will be drawn from HHARC’s virtual gatherings, affinity groups, seed grant program, and collaboration with an NIH-funded university institute for clinical and translational research.