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While implementation and dissemination of research is a rapidly growing area, critical questions remain about how, why, and under what conditions everyday people integrate and utilize research evidence. This mixed‐methods study investigates how participants of Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES) make sense of and use research evidence about suicide prevention in their own lives. PC CARES is a health intervention addressing the need for culturally responsive suicide prevention practices in rural Alaska through a series of community Learning Circles. We analyzed PC CARES transcripts and surveys for 376 participants aged 15+ across 10 Northwest Alaska Native villages. Quantitative analysis showed significant correlations between five utilization of research evidence (URE) factors and participants' intent to use research evidence from PC CARES Learning Circles. Key qualitative themes from Learning Circle transcripts expanded upon these URE constructs and included navigating discordant information, centering relationships, and Indigenous worldviews as key to interpreting research evidence. We integrate and organize our findings to inform two domains from the Consolidated Framework for Research Implementation: (1) intervention characteristics and (2) characteristics of individuals, with emphasis on findings most relevant for community settings where self‐determined, evidence‐informed action is especially important for addressing health inequities. Highlights: Prioritizing local needs and contexts is key for implementing evidence‐supported practices in community settings.There is limited research on how community‐driven implementation may improve uptake and advance health equity.This study uses CFIR framework to assess community‐driven utilization of research evidence in community settings.Quantitative data shows correlations between URE and participants' intentions to act on research evidence.Qualitative findings describe how participants make meaning and plan to use presented research evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous youth suicide remains a substantial health disparity in circumpolar communities, despite prevention efforts through primary health care, public health campaigns, school systems, and social services. Innovations in prevention practice move away from expert‐driven approaches to emphasize local control through processes that utilize research evidence, but privilege self‐ determined action based on local and personal contexts, meanings, and frameworks for action. "Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide" is a community health intervention that draws on networks of Indigenous health educators in rural Alaska, who host learning circles in which research evidence is used to spark conversations and empower community members to consider individual and collective action to support vulnerable people and create health‐promoting conditions that reduce suicide risk. The first of nine learning circles focuses on narratives of local people who link the contemporary youth suicide epidemic to 20th century American colonialism, and situates prevention within this context. We describe the theoretical framework and feasibility and acceptability outcomes for this learning circle, and elucidate how the educational model engages community members in decolonial approaches to suicide prevention education and practice, thus serving as a bridge between Western and Indigenous traditions to generate collective knowledge and catalyze community healing. Highlights: This study examines narrative linkages between Alaska Native youth suicide and colonial violence.Alaska Natives linked youth suicide to culture loss, social suffering, and rapid social change.Innovations in prevention practice call for decolonial and community‐based approaches.PC CARES utilizes decolonial pedagogy to support self‐determined prevention practicein rural AK.Participants expressed collective strength and aspirations to lead suicide prevention practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]