Feminist mentoring in community-based participatory action research

Building capacity and competency in conducting health disparities research

There is growing utilization and acknowledgement of the benefits of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) in advancing health practices and equity. However, the sustainability and full impact of CBPAR in health care settings faces many obstacles and limitations. The present article examines the synergies between CBPAR and Clubhouse programs, presents the demonstration and ongoing implementation of sustainable CBPAR practices at Fountain House in New York City, and offers lessons learned for other Clubhouses and similar programs seeking to integrate CBPAR. Alignment in practice and principles between CBPAR and Clubhouse programs are presented. The innovation and ongoing sustainable CBPAR practices in the Fountain House Clubhouse program are examined with a contribution of practice guidance for other Clubhouse and similar programs in further adopting and learning CBPAR into participatory health practices. Clubhouse psychosocial rehabilitation programs present structurally conducive settings for the success and sustainability of CBPAR activities and projects. The Fountain House examination and demonstration of integrating CBPAR sustainably into core Clubhouse programming presents opportunities for further integration, research, and practice guidance in uniquely leveraging features of the Clubhouse model to advance health equity and rehabilitative outcomes through CBPAR. The opportunity for incorporating structural CBPAR activities within Clubhouse programs can be informed by the experience, processes, and lessons applied in the Fountain House example. Further research into the rehabilitation, program, and equity benefits of Clubhouse and CBPAR integration could uniquely contribute to the advancement of sustainable participatory research practices across the mental health field generally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The transition from adolescence to young adulthood presents an opportunity for health promotion and illness prevention. However, the transition from pediatric to adult healthcare services is complex and exposes systemic vulnerabilities in the healthcare system, particularly in access to care for marginalized youth. There exist high rates of discontinuity in primary care for young adults, amplifying health disparities. In the final stages of the transition process, the transfer to adult healthcare services is critical to continuity of care. There is a need to better understand and address access to care issues for young adults. This study explores barriers and facilitators to access to primary care for young adults in an urban Latinx community through community-based participatory research (CBPR) and youth participatory action research (YPAR). This study was developed in partnership with a hospital-affiliated community-based youth program and youth research leaders. Group concept mapping methodology was used to structure discussions with the organization's youth and staff members. Results indicate that the highest priority factors for young adults in seeking primary care are related to the culture of the clinical setting, including intangible factors such as "respect by front desk staff" and "relationship with provider." These factors are also perceived by young adults to be more feasible targets for improvement as opposed to, for example, insurance coverage. The findings provide a roadmap to advocate for interventions to transform young adult services within the healthcare system as well as a framework for integrating youth voices and leadership into the research process.

Community-based participatory action research (CBPR) is an inclusive methodology well suited to researching, mitigating, and ending human trafficking. CBPR principles, including recognition of power dynamics across communities, allowing practitioners, stakeholders, and survivors to participate in the research design and analysis, and establishing norms of reciprocity and ongoing engagement, can enhance the quality of research produced to end human trafficking. This paper argues that CBPR can: 1) overcome limitations to common research designs currently utilized in human trafficking research efforts, 2) more effectively prioritize and respond to vulnerable populations, and 3) provide a longitudinal way to support practitioners seeking to reduce trafficking in communities. The Colorado Project is introduced as a specific example of a CBPR methodology. It highlights four ethical considerations when using CBPR: 1) balancing community values, needs, and identity with those of the individual; 2) negotiating power dynamics and relationships, particularly when working with stigmatized populations; 3) negotiating conflicting ethical requirements and expectations from Institutional Review Boards (IRBs); and 4) facilitating social action emerging from the findings.

The research framework of participatory community-based research is most known as community-based participatory research (CBPR) and is presented with many names and acronyms throughout the literature in social work and other fields of study, including CBPR, participatory action research (PAR), youth PAR, feminist PAR, and community-based PAR. This bibliography describes articles that use varied names for this concept but have similar objectives. At the core of community participant-centered research is including community members in the design, development, and decisions of the research to ensure outcomes that serve their identified needs. These research outcomes are specific to the identified individuals or community, which makes this type of research notably nongeneralizable. Although much can be learned about process, approach, and impact by considering a CBPR project, each community’s research design and outcomes would likely be very different from others when using a CBPR approach. General details about CBPR and similar research frameworks are described in the General Works section, featuring articles and textbooks that describe the steps of carrying out these research projects, including building trust, addressing issues of power, and centering community. The different approaches to CBPR are shown through diverse articles and textbooks on specific stances that researchers and scholars can choose from when thinking about how to work with or learn about specific communities. There is also an opportunity to merge the varied approaches expressed in this bibliography, as the community and research team deems appropriate. A core ethic of the CBPR framework is addressing issues of power, privilege, and oppression in the community, between researchers and participants, and in wider society. CBPR has a nimbleness that allows it to be implemented in multiple settings with different types of people. The current literature highlights that this research framework can be carried out in the context of myriad crises—global pandemics, environmental disasters, and the demise of democracy. Social work research and practice spans varied topics that would align with the CBPR framework. In an effort to align with the social work practice and community concerns, the identified social work topics are CBPR projects centered on Race and Racism, Health and Mental Health Equity, issues Across the Lifespan, and LGBTQ Community concerns. These topics are addressed from a global perspective, including articles from various countries around the globe. This global approach is important given our interconnected world. Technology is also a consistent part of the global society. Therefore, it is an important topic to consider when we think about its impact on communities and how CBPR and technology can merge to yield positive outcomes.

The literature suggests that community-based participatory research holds the potential to democratize and decolonize knowledge production by engaging communities and citizens in the research enterprise. Yet this approach, and its associated claims, remain under theorized, particularly as to how power circulates between and among academic and community knowledge work/ers. This paper puts forth a postcolonial analysis of participatory techniques that sustain academe’s epistemic privilege through producing, subordinating and assimilating difference; claiming authenticity and voice; and dislocating collaborative knowledge work from the historical, political, social and embodied conditions in which it unfolds. Postcolonial readings of community-based participatory action research offer a powerful theoretical framework for interrogating the divide between the discursive claims and material practices that undermine this democratic project. Drawing on critical reflections on two community-based participatory action research projects, this paper offers modest proposals toward (re)placing community-based knowledge work/ers in space, time and bodies. Although this paper presents a critique of community-based participatory action research, it is not in pursuit of revealing “bad” participatory praxis or recuperating a better practice, but rather seeks to open up dialogue on the circulation of power in the campus/community encounter.

Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) is used in a variety of disciplines, including community development. However, intergenerational CBPAR research, particularly when using visual methods, has been uncommon in fields outside of those in the health domain. Given the success with which some health-related studies with vulnerable youth and adults from disadvantaged regions have applied this kind of research, we conducted a study using a similar approach on entrepreneurship and social and economic capacity building in a rural and remote region. Our CBPAR intergenerational multi-methods research project involved youth, adults, seniors, Elders (Indigenous spiritual leaders), and academic researchers as investigative co-leaders seeking findings useful for changing inequitable systems and practices. With these research partners, we employed a carefully selected set of qualitative data collection methods, including a variety of visual methods, designed to produce robust and actionable findings and knowledge mobilization opportunities. Our research design provided a powerful way to triangulate data while engaging with the broader community to co-produce knowledge across generations. One way we did this was through Indigenous language videos, featuring community members of all ages describing their perspectives on social and economic development in their communities. In this article, we describe how and why our intergenerational multi-methods approach helped us verify our data and enabled our partner communities to leverage the findings to enhance local wellbeing. In doing so, we develop the case for using intergenerational multi-methods approaches with visual method elements in business and other disciplines in which these methods are not often used.

This article offers a critical reflection on my community-based participatory action research (CBPR) with a migrant women’s collective based in South China. I situate this self-reflexive account within the current conjuncture of post-Cold War neoliberal globalisation, where the US–China geopolitical confrontation looms large, giving rise to new authoritarian realities that compel Chinese feminists across domestic and transnational networks to envision and enact alternative forms of solidarity, activism and scholarship. Against this backdrop, I ask: How can we practise community-based research in solidarity with grassroots partners amid divisive and repressive political conditions? How can ethically accountable and politically attentive research relationships be co-nurtured to confront epistemic injustice and withstand political risk? Drawing on the migrant women’s solidarity praxis of ‘walking together’, I conceptualise my CBPR as an ongoing transborder feminist crossing, where community and scholarly partners cultivate dissident companionship and walk across structural divides to co-produce knowledge for meaningful social impact. Through an autoethnographic account of my contingent border-crossing CBPR during the Covid-19 pandemic–trade war crisis, I discuss how the migrant women’s ethics of solidarity, including mindful gatekeeping and meaningful reciprocity, resist hegemonic knowledge production and inform transborder feminist research engagement amid geopolitical uncertainty. By foregrounding Chinese grassroots women’s solidarity politics, this text contributes to Global South feminist epistemologies and methodologies and calls for new forms of transborder political intimacy in resistance to the global refashioning of authoritarian regimes.

Abstract: Background: Schools are rich sites for collaborations between health and educational sectors. Objectives: To identify lessons learned from formation of a community–academic partnership and application of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to develop a model that integrates community health workers into schools. Methods: Individuals from an academic medical center, a large public school district, and a community-based research institute applied CBPR principles to reimagine schools as a place for improving the health of children. Lessons Learned: Three lessons emerged. Leveraging each team member's expertise centered the partnership on community strengths, co-learning, and stakeholder engagement. Adherence to CBPR's principles of power sharing and equity helped navigate the challenges of collaboration between large institutions. Early focus on sustainability helped address unexpected issues, build capacity, and boost advocacy. Conclusions: This partnership demonstrates how CBPR fosters conditions in which equitable partnerships between research institutions and public schools can thrive to promote childhood health.

This article introduces a special section on empowered partnerships that deepens a dialogue initiated during the 2010 symposium titled EmPowered Partnerships: Community-Based Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice. The articles in this section will be divided between issues 1 and 2 of the Journal. After briefly reviewing the definitions and the steps associated with community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), we identify the synergies connecting the underlying principles and values of the environmental justice (EJ) movement and CBPAR. The principles-based comparison is part of an ongoing effort to craft a framework that produces research partnerships that are simultaneously more responsive to community aspirations and increase the rigor and accuracy of the findings. The action step is among the most difficult challenges for both CBPAR and EJ processes; we address this challenge as we encourage partners to think more strategically about the role of law and legal scholarship. This article closes with insight from environmental justice leaders that participated in this symposium and introductions to the in-depth case studies in rural and urban settings and from both ends of the university-community partnerships that constitute this special section. The articles that make up this section unpack empowered partnerships in practice and explore the scientific, cultural, institutional, and democratic pitfalls and possibilities in this arena of inquiry and social action.

IntroductionBreast cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers among women in Isfahan, Iran; however, its prevention is not desirable in this city. This disease poses several health, social and economic challenges for women. To promote women's self-care in breast cancer prevention, this study aims to design, implement and evaluate a self-care program among women in Isfahan through using a community-based participatory action research method.MethodsThe present study is based on a community-based participatory action research approach. In this study, the participatory action research includes four general phases of organizing, action planning, action, and rethinking. These phases are summarized as follows: In the organizing phase, the needs of the participants and the action research settings are examined. This means that the current situation is identified and the views of the process owners are assessed. In the action planning phase, using the results of the first phase, some strategies are designed to promote self-care behaviors in the prevention of breast cancer among women in Isfahan. In the implementation phase, the selected strategies are implemented with the help of the process owners. Finally, in the rethinking phase, the results of the implementation of the strategies are monitored and evaluated. This cycle continues until the intended results are achieved.DiscussionChanging the role of individuals from a passive status to an aware and active status in the care process requires motivation, responsibility, and active participation of individuals in the disease control process. Moreover, many cultural and social factors affect the active participation of Iranian women. Therefore, individuals can be involved in promoting their health using a community-based participatory action research approach.

Community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) is founded on meaningful collaboration with communities in the design and execution of research. CBPAR is gaining traction as an ethical and effective approach to research with underserved populations, including Indigenous youth. This scoping review examined 134 CBPAR studies involving Indigenous youth in Canada and the United States, to identify when, how, and to what extent Indigenous youth were engaged in research. Youth engagement was analysed on a continuum defined by the extent of decision-making throughout research. Indigenous youth participated in research decision-making in 62% of studies examined, with wide variation in extent and style of engagement. Youth wisdom and voices were often underutilized or undescribed in research decisions. However, many cases demonstrate that Indigenous youth can and do contribute meaningfully to research with and about their peers. Findings support a need for transparent reporting on how youth engagement is enacted in CBPAR.

An increased focus on patient-centred care in response to national efforts of improving the quality of health care calls for effective approaches to engaging patients and other stakeholders with research and its outcomes. Mixed methods research can provide a rigorous methodological foundation for community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) by synergistically combining qualitative stakeholder engagement methods with quantitative outcome-based oriented approaches for developing evidence-based, scientifically sound and patient-centred plans for improvement. CBPAR has long been applied in nursing research as a tool to engage patients and other stakeholders as co-researchers. When combined with mixed methods, CBPAR can assist stakeholders in developing better appreciation for a data-driven decision-making process by capitalising on the advantages of integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. This paper describes a mixed methods methodological framework for CBPAR as a means for promoting patient-centredness and enhancing stakeholder engagement with research outcomes. It follows the action research methodological steps and captures the synergetic combination of the two approaches by integrating mixed methods into each step in the CBPAR process. This framework is one illustration of using mixed methods to facilitate patient-centred research. It can provide a framework for developing stakeholder engagement plans and facilitating the process of translation of generated evidence into nursing practice.

In this chapter, we explore the use of participatory and community-based research (CBR) strategies within institutional ethnography. Reflecting on our current, past, and future projects, we discuss the utility of community-based and participatory methods for grounding one’s research in the actualities of participants’ lives. At the same time, we note ontological and practical differences between most community-based participatory action research (PAR) methodologies and institutional ethnography. While participants’ lives and experiences ground both approaches, people’s perspectives are not considered as research findings for institutional ethnographers. In an institutional ethnography, the objects of analysis are the institutional relations, which background and give shape to people’s actualities. The idea is to discover something through the research process that is useful to participants. As such, the use of community-based and participatory methods during analysis suggests the greatest utility of this sociological approach for people.

Community-based participatory research: opportunities, challenges, and the need for a common language.