Scientific studies are moving out of the lab and into neighborhoods, thanks to an innovative method called community-based participatory research (CBPR). In an upstate New York CBPR project, parents sit on the advisory board for a program to combat obesity, working closely with researchers to shape the study. Once this community assessment phase is finished, researchers will compile and share data with the families and discuss with them the best way to address the problem.
“Family-based interventions really haven’t been successful at all to date and part of the reason is the families aren’t engaged,” says Kirsten Davison, a professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Behavior at the University at Albany, SUNY, who is involved in the obesity project. “We’ve gone in assuming we know what works best for them and what their needs are. We’ve never really asked the parents what the issues are and what’s most important to them.”
By asking exactly these questions, and involving families up front rather than after the fact, CBPR researchers aim to develop effective insights that can be immediately used for both practice and policy. The families taking part in the obesity project, for example, will help refine the diet and exercise plans they use. Researchers hope their investment in the program will help family members stick with it through the implementation phase.
Conventional research methods and CBPR are complementary, according to Hal Lawson, another University at Albany professor working on the project. “One tells you a bit about the problems you’re trying to solve, and [the other] picks up with the question, What then shall we do differently and better?”
CBPR approaches are gaining ground, particularly in the field of public health. The Community Knowledge Project (CKP), a group at the University of California, Irvine whose members work to end inequalities in health, used CBPR with a low-income neighborhood youth soccer league in Orange County to evaluate the health impact on children. A local community task force used the resulting data to lobby for more funding, since the CBPR study showed the positive effects of its recreational and health programs.
“In CBPR, the community drives the conversation,” says Michael Montoya, a CKP member and professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine. “They drive the questions, the research and what it’s used for.”
