Place your bet on change: the Young Adult Action Collective leading community-academic partnership efforts to understand and address gambling harms in Springfield, MA

This community case study describes the development and implementation of the Gambling Awareness Research Initiative (GARI), a community-academic research partnership in Springfield, Massachusetts, created in response to the expansion of legalized gambling and the need for community-driven research to further understand gambling’s impact on youth and young adults. The initiative uses a participatory action research design that positions the Young Adult Action Collective, a group of young adults from the city, as co-researchers and co-leaders, working in partnership with the city’s Department of Health Human Services, a youth-serving community organization, and a university research team. Methodologically, GARI explores the adoption of arts-based research, such as digital storytelling and a creative crowdsourcing contest, as potential approaches to illuminate a stigmatized and often hidden public health issue like gambling. The paper highlights the process elements that make this model effective, including radical love, collective learning and growth, and young-adult-driven research development, as well as the logistical and structural challenges that arise from balancing research priorities and the realities of young-adult participation. Community work is, at its core, about building relationships and doing work that endures past the project at hand. Through this process, something meaningful is created: a kind of knowledge and connection that has the power to transform individuals, groups, and communities over time. As the public health field continues to confront complex health and social issues, GARI exemplifies how community-driven, arts-based methodologies can help engage young adults in shaping both the research questions and the pathways toward change. Such approaches hold the potential to deepen understanding, challenge extractive research norms, and strengthen the connections between the community and academia.