A Community-Based Participatory Research Model and Web Application for Studying Health Professional Shortage Areas in the United States

Abstract

Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) are still associated with “worse general health status and poor physical health” (Jiexin, 2007) in the United States today. Meanwhile, limitations still exist in HPSA studies for multiple reasons, including limited data resources and availability, lack of efficient way to share and collaborate, and lack of community participation and public awareness. To overcome these limitations, we proposed a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach for HPSA studies that allows researchers to share and collaborate on HPSA related data, and allows the general public to learn about HPSA and participate in survey and discussions that help supplement researchers’ data. Through CBPR, effective and location-appropriate research, planning, and awareness can be achieved (O'Fallon & Dearry, 2002). We then described a Web application, which was designed based on our CBPR model, through the use of Google Fusion Table and Geocoding.