772 | Health Expectations. 2019;22:772–784. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hex Received: 31 December 2018 | Revised: 5 April 2019 | Accepted: 21 May 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hex.12931 ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER Evaluating community deliberations about health research priorities Susan Dorr Goold MD, MHSA, MA, Professor 1 | Marion Danis MD, Section Head 2 | Julia Abelson PhD, Professor 3 | Michelle Gornick PhD, Research Investigator 4 | Lisa Szymecko JD, PhD, Researcher 4 | C. Daniel Myers PhD, Assistant Professor 5 | Zachary Rowe Executive Director 6 | Hyungjin Myra Kim ScD, Research Scientist 7 | Cengiz Salman MA, Doctoral Candidate 4 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2019 The Authors Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 Department of Internal Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan 2 Warren Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 3 Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 4 Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 5 Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 6 Friends of Parkside, Detroit, Michigan 7 Center for Statistical Computation and Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Correspondence Susan Dorr Goold, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, 2800 Plymouth Road, Bldg 16 425‐W, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Email: sgoold@umich.edu Present Address Cengiz Salman, Department of American Culture, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Funding information This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (Grant #1RO1AG040138‐01). Abstract Context: Engaging underrepresented communities in health research priority setting could make the scientific agenda more equitable and more responsive to their needs. Objective: Evaluate democratic deliberations engaging minority and underserved communities in setting health research priorities. Methods: Participants from underrepresented communities throughout Michigan (47 groups, n = 519) engaged in structured deliberations about health research priorities in professionally facilitated groups. We evaluated some aspects of the structure, process, and outcomes of deliberations, including representation, equality of participation, participants’ views of deliberations, and the impact of group deliberations on individual participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and points of view. Follow‐up interviews elicited richer descriptions of these and also explored later effects on deliberators. Results: Deliberators (age 18‐88 years) overrepresented minority groups. Participation in discussions was well distributed. Deliberators improved their knowledge about disparities, but not about health research. Participants, on average, supported using their group's decision to inform decision makers and would trust a process like this to inform funding decisions. Views of deliberations were the strongest predictor of these outcomes. Follow‐up interviews revealed deliberators were particularly struck by their experience hearing and understanding other points of view, sometimes surprised at the group's ability to reach agreement, and occasionally activated to volunteer or advocate. Conclusions: Deliberations using a structured group exercise to engage minority and underserved community members in setting health research priorities met some important criteria for a fair, credible process that could inform policy. Deliberations appeared to change some opinions, improved some knowledge, and were judged by participants worth using to inform policymakers.