Module 1
Topics
 Community
 Community-Engaged Research
 Community-Based Participatory Research
 Relevance to PEER
Understanding CommunityAcademic 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-linkedresearch/
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-linkedresearch/
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,



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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-linkedresearch/
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
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
W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Health
Scholar’s Program (2001)
CBPR emphasizes
Mutual respect
o Co-learning
o Individual and community capacity building
o Balance between research and action
o
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

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
•
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
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 communitybased 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
 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?