Community-Based Participatory Research: A New and Not-So-New Approach to HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Treatment

Abstract

After nearly 30 years since the identification of HIV, a vaccine or effective cure still eludes us. Furthermore, our current challenges in providing access, and ensuring uptake and consistent adherence, to antiretroviral (ARV) medications indicate that the epidemic will continue to challenge educators and practitioners, clinicians and providers, and advocates and policy makers, even after a viable vaccine exists (Rhodes, Hergenrather, Wilkin, & Wooldredge, 2009). Currently, the most effective means to confront the HIV epidemic are to reduce (a) behavioral risk, (b) seropositive infectivity, and/or (c) biological vulnerability to infection. However, clearly our current arsenal of effective approaches to increase adherence to risk reduction strategies and treatment remains insufficient. This Theme Issue of AIDS Education and Prevention: An Interdisciplinary Journal explores how community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers can combine their knowledge, perspectives, experiences, and resources to systematically inform and promote HIV prevention, care, and treatment in meaningful and effective ways through community-based participatory research (CBPR). We know that understanding and intervening upon complex health problems such as HIV/AIDS benefit from the multiple perspectives of community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2002; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Committee on Community Engagement, 1997; Green, 2001; Hergenrather & Rhodes, 2008; Institute of Medicine, 2000; Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker, 1998; Viswanathan, et al., 2004). Research aimed at understanding and promoting health has increasingly focused attention on CBPR (Eng, et al., 2005; Institute of Medicine, 2003; Israel, et al., 1998; Rhodes, et al., 2006; Viswanathan, et al., 2004; Wallerstein & Duran, 2003), recognizing that a community “outsider,” such as an academic researcher, can work best with community partners, who themselves are experts (Rhodes, et al., 2006; Rhodes, Hergenrather, Ramsey, Yee, & Wilkin, 2007). Blending lived experiences with sound science has the potential to develop deeper understandings of phenomena, and thus, produce more relevant and more likely successful and impactful interventions.