Community-based participatory research

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an equitable approach to research in which researchers, organizations, and community members collaborate on all aspects of a research project. CBPR empowers all stakeholders to offer their expertise and partake in the decision-making process. CBPR projects aim to increase the body of knowledge and the public's awareness of a given phenomenon and apply that knowledge to create social and political interventions that will benefit the community.<ref name=":0">Israel, Barbara A.; Schulz, Amy J.; Parker, Edith A.; Becker, Adam B. (1998). "REVIEW OF COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH: Assessing Partnership Approaches to Improve Public Health". Annual Review of Public Health. 19: 173–202. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173. PMID 9611617.</ref> CBPR projects range in their approaches to community engagement. Some practitioners are less inclusive of community members in the decision-making processes, whereas others empower community members to direct of the goals of the project.<ref>"IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation". www.bangthetable.com. Retrieved 2018-12-12.</ref>

History

The historical roots of CBPR trace back to the development of participatory action research by Kurt Lewin and Orlando Fals Borda, and the popular education movement in Latin America associated with Paulo Freire.<ref>Wallerstein, N. and B. Duran (2003). The Conceptual, Historical and Practical Roots of Community Based Participatory Research and Related Participatory Traditions.</ref><ref>Community Based Participatory Research for Health. M. Minkler and N. Wallerstein. San Francisco, Jossey Bass: 27-52</ref>

Principles

CBPR offers nine guiding principles. These principles include: 1) acknowledging communities as "unities of identity", 2) building on existing community strengths and resources, 3) facilitating partnerships that are equitable, collaborative, empowering, and address social inequalities, 4) committing to co-learning and capacity building, 5) balancing knowledge generation and intervention to ensure mutual benefits for partners, 6) focusing on local issues of public concern, 7) utilizing a cyclical and repeatable process, 8) delivering results and knowledge to all partners, and 9) establishing sustainable, long-term partnerships with communities.<ref name=":0" /> Partnerships may use these principles to inform their studies, but are not required to adhere to them entirely. Instead, each partnership should discuss and decide on their own guiding principles to best reflect their collective vision.<ref name=":1">Israel, B. A., Eng, E., Schulz, A. J., & Parker, E. A. (2005). Introduction to methods in community-based participatory research for health. Methods in community-based participatory research for health, 3, 26.</ref>

Process

CBPR is an iterative process, incorporating research, reflection, and action in a cyclical process. A CBPR project starts with the community, which participates fully in every aspect of the research process. "Community" is often self-defined, but common definitions of community include a geographic community, a community of individuals with a common problem, or a community of individuals with a common interest or goal. CBPR encourages collaboration between "experts" and communities, provided that the researchers are committed to sharing leadership and producing outcomes that are usable to the community that they intend to collaborate with. Equitable partnerships require sharing power, resources, knowledge, results, and credit. Mapping the groups that make up a community can reveal power relationships and create opportunities for relationship building. Ideally, stakeholders should be from different positions of the community so that changes are implemented at all different levels. The policies and policymakers connected to the community problem should be identified. The next stages of CBPR include identifying the problem, research design, conducting research, interpreting the results, and determining how the results should be used for action.

CBPR interventions can take many forms, including media or other educational campaigns, subsidized medical testing and healthcare programs, establishing quality standards for healthcare services as well as bonuses for healthcare providers who refer patients to CBPR-related services. Some projects involve training for young people to learn how to educate and advocate for change in their communities.  

Environmental justice

Community-based participatory research plays a meaningful role in the environmental justice movement. CBPR is a collaborative effort between researchers, academics, and environmental justice (EJ) communities. In the United States, EJ communities are characterized by residents who are people of color, low-income, non-native English speakers (linguistic isolation), or foreign born. Due to their intersecting racial, national, and class identities, EJ communities have little control capacity and are the targets of negative externalities by polluting corporations. CBPR takes a procedural justice approach to EJ issues, addressing the structural causes of environmental injustices and illuminating the power structures at play. CBPR often takes the form of empirical research,<ref name=":2">Davis, Leona F.; Ramírez-Andreotta, Mónica D. (February 2021). "Participatory Research for Environmental Justice: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis". Environmental Health Perspectives. 129 (2): 026001. doi:10.1289/EHP6274. ISSN 0091-6765. PMC 7885999. PMID 33591210.</ref> in which EJ community members observe environmental or health hazards in their communities and form hypotheses about the origins of these hazards. By bettering communities' understandings of the problems they face, CBPR supports environmental literacy<ref name="Kaplan Mintz 27–44">Kaplan Mintz, Keren; Arazy, Ofer; Malkinson, Dan (2023-01-02). "Multiple forms of engagement and motivation in ecological citizen science". Environmental Education Research. 29 (1): 27–44. doi:10.1080/13504622.2022.2120186. ISSN 1350-4622. S2CID 252258719.</ref> and knowledge justice. Community-based research is more likely to trigger public action and engagement with environmental issues than traditional research.<ref name="Kaplan Mintz 27–44"/> Bottom up community-based research in which community members oversee each phase of the research project is more likely to inspire structural reforms that are responsive to the needs of EJ communities.<ref name=":2"/>

Research

It is important to understand that CBPR research focuses on the relationships within the partnership and the overall goals, as opposed to strict research methods.<ref>Wallerstein, Nina B.; Duran, Bonnie (2006). "Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Address Health Disparities". Health Promotion Practice. 7 (3): 312–323. doi:10.1177/1524839906289376. ISSN 1524-8399. PMID 16760238. S2CID 3408218.</ref> Scholarship in the area of CBPR is vast and spells out various approaches which consider multiple theoretical and methodological approaches.<ref>Peralta, Karie Jo (2017-09-21), "Politics of Knowledge in Community-Based Work", Dimensions of Community-Based Projects in Health Care, Springer International Publishing, pp. 67–78, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61557-8_6, ISBN 9783319615561</ref> The content areas include health,<ref>Wilson, Elena (2018), "Community-Based Participatory Action Research", Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, Springer Singapore, pp. 1–15, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_87-1, ISBN 9789811027796, S2CID 158909285</ref><ref>Jenkins, Richard A. (2007). "Editorial: Challenges in Engaging Community Participation in HIV Prevention Research". Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action. 1 (2): 117–119. doi:10.1353/cpr.2007.0009. ISSN 1557-055X. PMID 20208229. S2CID 23458609.</ref><ref>Jenkins, Richard A. (2007). "Editorial: Challenges in Engaging Community Participation in HIV Prevention Research". Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action. 1 (2): 117–119. doi:10.1353/cpr.2007.0009. PMID 20208229. S2CID 23458609.</ref><ref>Aguado Loi, Claudia X.; Alfonso, Moya L.; Chan, Isabella; Anderson, Kelsey; Tyson, Dinorah (Dina) Martinez; Gonzales, Junius; Corvin, Jaime (2017). "Application of mixed-methods design in community-engaged research: Lessons learned from an evidence-based intervention for Latinos with chronic illness and minor depression". Evaluation and Program Planning. 63: 29–38. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.12.010. PMID 28343021.</ref> ethnic studies,<ref>"Sociology in Action: Nancy López". American Sociological Association. 2018-02-14. Retrieved 2018-12-13.</ref> bullying,<ref>Gibson, Jennifer E.; Flaspohler, Paul D.; Watts, Vanessa (2015). "Engaging Youth in Bullying Prevention Through Community-Based Participatory Research". Family & Community Health. 38 (1): 120–130. doi:10.1097/FCH.0000000000000048. PMID 25423250.</ref> environmental justice,<ref name=":2" /> and indigenous communities.<ref>Castleden, Heather; Garvin, Theresa; First Nation, Huu-ay-aht (2008). "Modifying Photovoice for community-based participatory Indigenous research". Social Science & Medicine. 66 (6): 1393–1405. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.11.030. ISSN 0277-9536. PMID 18191883.</ref>

There is a lot of scholarship exploring how to teach students about CBPR or community based research (CBR). Some have taken what could be called a critical approach to this by emphasizing the “institutional power inequalities” in community based organization-university relationship building. There are successes and failures in using CBPR approaches in teaching, which practitioners can consider.<ref>Marullo, Sam; Moayedi, Roxanna; Cooke, Deanna (2009). "C. Wright Mills's Friendly Critique of Service Learning and an Innovative Response: Cross-Institutional Collaborations for Community-Based Research". Teaching Sociology. 37 (1): 61–75. doi:10.1177/0092055X0903700106. S2CID 144172245.</ref> Others have argued that community based work can provide several learning benefits, with pros and cons to the various approaches.<ref>Mooney, Linda A.; Edwards, Bob (2001). "Experiential Learning in Sociology: Service Learning and Other Community-Based Learning Initiatives". Teaching Sociology. 29 (2): 181. doi:10.2307/1318716. JSTOR 1318716.</ref> Scholars continue to problematize approaches that can engage instructors and students in imagining ways to work with communities.<ref>Petersen, James C.; Dukes, Duane; Van Valey, Thomas L. (2008). "Alternative Futures for Applied Sociology". Journal of Applied Social Science. 2 (2): 77–84. doi:10.1177/193672440800200208. S2CID 143001168.</ref><ref>Peterson, James C., Thomas L Van Valey, and Duane Dukes. "The Challenge of Teaching Applied Sociology". Essay published in TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)</ref><ref>"Journal of Applied Social Science". SAGE Journals. Retrieved 2018-12-24.</ref>

Research challenges

Scholarship has explored the potential barriers to collecting community-based participatory research data. The CBPR approach is in line with the body of sociological work that advocates for "protagonist driven ethnography".<ref>Cobb, Jessica Shannon; Hoang, Kimberly Kay (2015). "Protagonist-Driven Urban Ethnography". City & Community. 14 (4): 348–351. doi:10.1111/cico.12136. S2CID 146365365.</ref> The approach provides for and demands that researchers collaborate with communities throughout the research process. However, challenges can surface given the power relationship between researcher and communities. The CBPR approach proposes that researchers be mindful of this possibility. The researcher can expect to spend a lot of time navigating and building the researcher-community relationship. Additionally, through CBPR, researchers enable communities to hold them accountable to addressing ethical concerns inherent to collecting information from what are often marginalized communities. Sociologists have entered the discussion from the point of view of the ethnographer or participant observer, where some have argued against "exoticizing the ghetto" or "cowboy ethnography".<ref>Small, Mario L. (2015). "De-Exoticizing Ghetto Poverty: On the Ethics of Representation in Urban Ethnography". City & Community. 14 (4): 352–358. doi:10.1111/cico.12137. S2CID 15082712.</ref> These works could be read as a check on the scholar centered work that can emerge when collecting ethnographic or participant observation data. The perception of researchers is something to weigh when considering this approach or other forms of field work. One researcher stated that "Researchers are like mosquitoes; they suck your blood and leave.”<ref>Cochran, Patricia A. L.; Marshall, Catherine A.; Garcia-Downing, Carmen; Kendall, Elizabeth; Cook, Doris; McCubbin, Laurie; Gover, Reva Mariah S. (2008). "Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Implications for Participatory Research and Community". American Journal of Public Health. 98 (1): 22–27. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2006.093641. PMC 2156045. PMID 18048800.</ref> Through this lens, a focus on a CBPR project at the exclusion of the community could harm the goals of co-learning and shared goal accomplishment.

Applications

Applications of community-based participatory research are more common in medicine than other areas of research. Prevention, management, and awareness building about diabetes,<ref>Kitzman, Heather; Dodgen, Leilani; Mamun, Abdullah; Slater, J. Lee; King, George; Slater, Donna; King, Alene; Mandapati, Surendra; DeHaven, Mark (November 2017). "Community-based participatory research to design a faith-enhanced diabetes prevention program: The Better Me Within randomized trial". Contemporary Clinical Trials. 62: 77–90. doi:10.1016/j.cct.2017.08.003. PMC 5641253. PMID 28807739.</ref> HIV/AIDS,<ref>Rhodes, Scott D.; Malow, Robert M.; Jolly, Christine (June 2010). "Community-Based Participatory Research: A New and Not-So-New Approach to HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Treatment". AIDS Education and Prevention. 22 (3): 173–183. doi:10.1521/aeap.2010.22.3.173. PMC 3282157. PMID 20528127.</ref> asthma,<ref>Corburn, Jason (April 2002). "Combining community-based research and local knowledge to confront asthma and subsistence-fishing hazards in Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York". Environmental Health Perspectives. 110 (suppl 2): 241–248. doi:10.1289/ehp.02110s2241. PMC 1241169. PMID 11929734.</ref> cancer,<ref>Simonds, Vanessa W.; Wallerstein, Nina; Duran, Bonnie; Villegas, Malia (16 May 2013). "Community-Based Participatory Research: Its Role in Future Cancer Research and Public Health Practice". Preventing Chronic Disease. 10: E78. doi:10.5888/pcd10.120205. ISSN 1545-1151. PMC 3666975. PMID 23680507.</ref> mental health, obesity,<ref>Ortiz, Kasim; Nash, Jacob; Shea, Logan; Oetzel, John; Garoutte, Justin; Sanchez-Youngman, Shannon; Wallerstein, Nina (2020-04-02). "Partnerships, Processes, and Outcomes: A Health Equity–Focused Scoping Meta-Review of Community-Engaged Scholarship". Annual Review of Public Health. 41 (1): 177–199. doi:10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040119-094220. ISSN 0163-7525. PMC 8095013. PMID 31922931.</ref> and HPV vaccination<ref>Barbee, Lindley; Kobetz, Erin; Menard, Janelle; Cook, Nicole; Blanco, Jenny; Barton, Betsy; Auguste, Pascale; McKenzie, Nathalie (1 March 2010). "Assessing the acceptability of self-sampling for HPV among Haitian immigrant women: CBPR in action". Cancer Causes & Control. 21 (3): 421–431. doi:10.1007/s10552-009-9474-0. ISSN 1573-7225. PMID 19943103. S2CID 23852001.</ref> have been explored by CBPR studies. Because of its community-based,<ref>Tobias, Joshua K.; Richmond, Chantelle A. M.; Luginaah, Isaac (1 April 2013). "Community-Based Participatory Research (Cbpr) with Indigenous Communities: Producing Respectful and Reciprocal Research". Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. 8 (2): 129–140. doi:10.1525/jer.2013.8.2.129. PMID 23651937. S2CID 29551009.</ref><ref>Nguyen, Tung T.; McPhee, Stephen J.; Bui-Tong, Ngoc; Luong, Thien-Nhien; Ha-Iaconis, Tuyet; Nguyen, Thoa; Wong, Ching; Lai, Ky Q.; Lam, Hy (11 May 2006). "Community-Based Participatory Research Increases Cervical Cancer Screening among Vietnamese-Americans". Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. 17 (2): 31–54. doi:10.1353/hpu.2006.0078. ISSN 1548-6869. S2CID 201754502.</ref> humanistic approach and public outreach potential, CBPR studies are commonly used with marginalized groups, such ethnic minorities and autistic people.<ref>Keating, Connor Tom (2021). "Participatory Autism Research: How Consultation Benefits Everyone". Frontiers in Psychology. 12: 713982. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713982. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 8421540. PMID 34504463.</ref>

Resources

There are a number of institutions that provide funding and other resources for CBPR studies.<ref>"Collaborations: A Journal of Community-based Research and Practice | University of Miami". scholarlyrepository.miami.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-29.</ref> Organizations and institutions support CBPR by focusing on youth,<ref>"Learn About YPAR | YPAR Hub". Retrieved 2018-12-19.</ref> and social justice.<ref>"Community Psychology, Social Justice Through Collaborative Research and Action". Community Psychology. Retrieved 2018-12-19.</ref> Networks of researchers, professionals, and activists collaborate on CBPR projects.<ref>"Sociology". Urban Research Network. 2013-09-17. Retrieved 2018-12-19.</ref><ref>"Public Practices of Sociology". Public Practices of Sociology. Retrieved 2018-12-19.</ref>