Understanding Community-Academic Partnerships Module 1

Topics Community Community-Engaged Research Community-Based Participatory Research Relevance to PEER

Understanding Community-Academic Partnerships Why is this important? How is it relevant to me and my organization?

Community A group of people... Linked by social ties Sharing common perspectives or interests Who may or may not share a geographic location Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

Community Members share a Common Characteristic or Goal Examples: Common culture or ethnic heritage Where they live Similar age Speak the same language Religion Communities are not homogeneous and seldom speak with one voice Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

Composition of Communities in Community Engaged Research A community is typically comprised of: community leaders community organizations and agencies community members *These groups are outside of academia These groups represent different aspects of a community and are likely to have different perspectives Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

Community-Engaged Research Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) working definition of community-engaged research: “ the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the wellbeing of those people.”

History Action Research: process of communities identifying their problems, planning, taking action, and then evaluating the results (Lewin, 1940’s) Empowerment Education: emphasizes the equality of teachers and learners and the co-learning process (learning from each other) (Freire, 1970’s) Incorporates principles of social justice and empowerment for marginalized communities Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

Community-Engaged Research A framework or approach for conducting research, rather than a research method May be used with both qualitative and quantitative methods Recognizes and builds on community strengths Characterized by principles that guide the research Requires partnership development Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

What do community organizations bring to community-engaged research? What do PEER fellows and their agencies bring that complements the faculty knowledge?

What Community Organizations bring to Community-Engaged Research Community-based organizations have critical, useful and intimate understandings of the concerns, values, assets and activities in their communities. When CBOs are engaged as partners in research, they bring these perspectives to help shape and refine study questions, implementation strategies, and data collection plans. CBOs play an important role identifying how the study results may be applied to practice, and how the results can be used to shape future research directions. www.ctsi.ucsf.edu/community

What Academics bring to Community-Engaged Research What do the academics bring to the table?

What’s in a name? community-engaged research* community-based participatory research (CBPR)* community-based research community-partnered participatory research action research participatory research mutual inquiry community-academic collaborative research Lively academic debate over the terms and approach – experts in the field have difficulty describing the differences which are sometimes subtle

Spectrum of Community-Engaged Research More Intensive: Collaborating fully in all aspects of research, including defining study questions, writing the proposal, implementing the research project, analyzing the results and disseminating the findings (CBPR) Moderately Intensive: Assisting with researcher-designed study; participant recruitment, data collection, providing feedback on aspects of study design & findings Less Intensive: Assisting in discrete steps of a researcher-designed study, such as participant recruitment www.ctsi.ucsf.edu/community

Community-Engaged Research More Intensive (CBPR): HIV prevention researchers collaborated with a group of sex workers in South Africa to co-develop an intervention these women could realistically use to protect themselves from contracting HIV. The sex workers collaborated with researchers to develop and implement a peer education program which provided information on protection methods they could use without losing customers and earnings. Moderately Intensive: Beginning in the late 1980s at the Hispanic Health Council in Connecticut, anthropologists obtained community input in developing programs and designing services for injection drug users, pregnant women, and teens in the local Spanish speaking community. Less Intensive: A needle exchange program was developed by academic investigators in New York City. Community members were hired to recruit participants into the program. Singer M. 1993 Campbell C. 2001 Israel BA, et al 1998 Wallerstein N, Duran B. 2003 Duke Center for Community Research http://www.dtmi.duke.edu/dccr/community-linked-research/

What is Community-Based Participatory Research (CPBR)? “CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that equitably involves all partners in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings. CBPR begins with a research topic of importance to the community with the aim of combining knowledge and action for social change to improve community health and eliminate health disparities.” Full collaboration in all aspects of research, including defining study questions, writing the proposal, implementing the research project, analyzing the results and disseminating the findings Let me first re-state that CBPR is an approach or orientation to research. It is not a method. CBPR was predated by several streams of applied research, and without getting into the details of that evolution, CBPR has become a term used to describe a continuum of approaches all of which have 3 things in common; participation, research and action. This is the Kellogg Foundation Health Scholar’s definition of CBPR in the health field.... W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Health Scholar’s Program (2001)

CBPR emphasizes Mutual respect Co-learning Individual and community capacity building Balance between research and action Israel, Schulz, Parker, and Becker 1998

Principles of CBPR Builds on community strengths and resources Facilitates collaborative, equitable partnership in all research phases and involves an empowering and power-sharing process Barbara Israel together with her academic and community partners have described 9 core principles of CBPR. University of Michigan Urban Research Center The 9 principles drive the spirit of the research whereby rigorous science can be applied appropriately and therefore more successfully with underserved communities, leading to more successful interventions addressing health disparities.

Principles of CBPR Emphasizes public health problems of local relevance and acknowledges multiple determinants of health and disease Disseminates findings and knowledge to all partners

What CBPR is not Studies where participants merely “come from the community” Unengaged venue for recruiting subjects for clinical trials Flip side….moving away from “traditional” approaches to research

Benefits of CBPR Enhances relevance of research questions to the communities Enhances reliability and validity of measurement instruments Improves response rates Enhances recruitment and retention Strengthens interventions by incorporating cultural beliefs into scientifically valid approaches CBPR has endorsement of NIH….

Benefits of CBPR Increases accurate and culturally sensitive interpretation of findings Facilitates effective dissemination of findings to impact public health and policy Increases translation of evidence-based research into sustainable community change Provides resources and benefits to communities Joins partners with diverse expertise Increases research trust

Why does PEER use the CBPR framework?

CBPR and PEER PEER… Seeks to develop the capacity of your organization and the capacity of academics to fully collaborate in community-engaged research Offers an opportunity for academics and community-based organizations to engage together in a guided, facilitated, systematic program Uses an applied learning approach Capacity of your organization will be increased through your dissemination of CBPR, research methods, research study progress/findings, …

Thank You

Videos Watch two videos of CBPR one from a researcher perspective and one from the community perspective http://vimeo.com/35427319 http://videos.med.wisc.edu/videos/6668 The videos are being edited down to about 15 – 20 minutes each.

What was the most important message for you from each video? What was the most surprising thing you learned from each video? Did the videos bring up important topics or issues (for fellows, organizations, or faculty partners) that you might encounter during PEER?