Community-Based Participatory Research and Community Health Development

Excerpt

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has become a primary focus for public health practice and research in the past decade and is included as a core competency in public health (Calhoun et al. 2008; Minkler and Wallerstein 2008). CBPR emphasizes inclusion of “research participants” and communities in the process of identifying and defining problems, determining what questions to ask, how to ask the questions (methodology), interpretation of the results, the development and implementation of interventions to address public health problems, program evaluation, and dissemination of results. Thus, CBPR offers the potential for addressing power differentials between researchers and communities and appeals to a broad range of professionals interested in population health improvement (Minkler and Wallerstein 2008). In a CBPR-oriented initiative communities are engaged in the research and intervention process, and the expectation is that skills related to problem definition, assessment, research, intervention development and implementation, and evaluation skills will be transferred from researchers to community members and community capacity will be strengthened (Goodman et al. 1998; Israel et al. 2008). …