Community-based Participatory Research Research Research Articles

Critical Rhetoric Meets Community-Based Participatory Research

ABSTRACT This project responds to a set of methodological challenges for the critical commitments of rhetorical fieldwork and investigates how community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods can help address them. As an example, we draw on Bailey Flynn’s CBPR research with Resilience, a not for-profit “rape crisis center” that provides services and therapy to thousands each year in Illinois. CBPR, like participatory critical rhetoric (PCR) methods, privileges field data as objects of rhetorical analysis. Unlike PCR and other approaches, CBPR methods prioritize the formalization of collaborative relationships with community stakeholders at every stage of research. We argue that greater integration of CBPR methods in rhetorical field methods will aid in privileging the epistemological perspectives of community stakeholders, solidifying critical communication scholarship’s commitment to conducting research with consequences, and providing a common ground for interdisciplinary exchange between critically trained rhetoric scholars and qualitative communication researchers.

Connecting Public Health Graduate Students with a Latinx Community Advisory Committee on Caregiving

Abstract In this paper, we describe insights from a formed Latinx Community Advisory Committee (LCAC) that consisted of 11 Latinx mothers of children with special needs. Three Public Health graduate students, as a part of a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) seminar, joined virtual meetings of the LCAC to hear insights into barriers and challenges of caregiving from these Latinx mothers, and the graduate students were tasked with developing a CBPR research proposal based on these insights.

165 Colorado Immersion Training: Ten years of lessons learned and accomplishments

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: The Colorado Immersion Training in Community Engagement (CIT) provides experiential training in community-based participatory research (CBPR). We summarized evaluations from the first ten years on program outcomes and lessons learned to inform future programming and the field of community research. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: CIT is a six-month program that includes didactic sessions, group readings and reflections and a one week immersion experience in a Colorado community experiencing health disparities. The Evaluation Center - University of Colorado Denver provides external evaluation services to the Colorado Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CCTSI). Evaluators used three primary methods to collect data to evaluate the program; Document review, interviews, and surveys. Evaluation data were analyzed using the framework of CBPR Principles and the CBPR conceptual logic model to understand potential shifts in researchers’ thinking and actions, as well as to identify the potential for longer-term impact. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: As of 2020, CIT trained 122 researchers. 25 CIT alumni went on to receive 33 CCTSI Pilot Grants. Out of these 33 grants, an additional $8,723,000 of external grant funding was awarded to continue projects. Community Research Liaisons are a crucial component of the program through their efforts to bridge academic researchers and communities. Survey results indicated that community partners reported high levels of satisfactions with the program and shared stories about the impact they have seen in their community. Common challenges for researchers remain 1) protected time and institutional value and, 2) funding opportunities. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: CIT has grown CBPR researchers. Similar programs should consider contributing factors: establishing institutional value and funding for CBPR initiatives with protected time for developing and maintaining community relationships. CIT offers a crucial connection between academia and community.

Supporting Antiracism Through the Thoughtful Conduct, Evaluation, and Use of Research

Supporting Antiracism Through the Thoughtful Conduct, Evaluation, and Use of Research

Promoting health equity in HIV prevention and treatment research: a practical guide to establishing, implementing, and sustaining community advisory boards.

Over the last 25 years, community-based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged as an innovative methodological approach to break down the barriers toward health equity in biopsychosocial research. Although there are several methods one can use to conduct CBPR research, one widely used established tool that has shown to be effective for engaging community meaningfully in research is community advisory boards (CABs). CABs are formalized collaborative bodies consisting of community and research stakeholders and have been integral in engaging underserved groups experiencing HIV-related health inequities at the early stages of the AIDS crisis. Even though evidence suggests that CABs are an effective tool for conducting high-quality, rigorous, and community-centered HIV-related research, there are minimal guidelines summarizing the steps needed for developing and maintaining a CAB. Therefore, to fill this gap in the literature, this article offers a practical guide to help researchers with minimal experience, particularly graduate students and early-stage investigators, feel more comfortable with establishing a CAB for equity-focused HIV-related research. This article synthesizes already established guidelines and frameworks for CAB development while specifically outlining unique steps related to the three main stages of CAB formation - establishment, implementation, and sustainment. Throughout this article, the authors offer tension points, generated from the literature and with consultation from a CAB working alongside the authors, that researchers and community partners may need to navigate during each of these three stages. In addition, best practices from the literature are identified for each step in the guidelines so that readers can see firsthand how research groups have carried out these steps in their own practice.

148 A Chair at the Table: A Scoping Review of the Participation of Refugee Adults and Youth in Healthcare Research and Policy Design

Abstract Primary Subject area Global Child and Youth Health Background The current refugee crisis is described as the largest humanitarian crisis of all time. Refugees often face psychosocial complexity and multi-dimensional healthcare needs. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods have been previously employed successfully in designing health programs for refugee children, youth and their families, and in building strong research partnerships in refugee communities. Objectives To review the evidence in the involvement of refugee adults, youth and children in CBPR processes. Design/Methods A scoping review was performed, using Arksey & O’Malley’s methodological framework. A literature search in Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Embase and Scopus for articles published until August 2020 was conducted. Articles were included if they focused on CBPR or Participatory Action Research as the methodological framework, had refugee involvement and discussed healthcare and health policy. Data extracted included ethno-racial data, country of origin, purpose of CBPR, refugee CBPR involvement and its influence on health care research and policy. Results 4125 articles were identified in the database searches. After removal of duplicates, 2077 articles underwent title and abstract review by two authors, yielding a kappa-statistic of 0.85. Fourteen studies were included in the final analysis. Of these, 35.7% (5/14) included refugee children/youth in their CBPR methods. The purpose of the CBPR methods for 60% (3/5) of the articles focused on mental health promotion-related strategies. The other 40% (2/5) of articles focused on reproductive health. Eighty percent (4/5) of the studies included refugees in the inception of the research problem and in knowledge translation efforts, whereas none were involved in seeking funding. All studies included refugee participants in the study design and engaging community/recruitment. However, there were varying degrees of involvement of refugees in the data analysis (40%, 2/5), knowledge translation (40%, 2/5) and scale up (20%, 1/5). All studies did not distinguish between the level of CBPR involvement of children and adolescents. Conclusion There is scarce literature describing the involvement of refugee children, youth and their families in research. CBPR has been identified as a methodology with the potential to make substantial contributions to improving health and well-being in traditionally disenfranchised population groups. As the needs of refugee communities are so diverse, efforts should be made to include refugees in all stages of the research process. This scoping review demonstrates that levels of involvement in CBPR processes amongst refugee children, youth and adults may not be differentiated, and as such, may conflate their needs and experiences. Barriers to full participation in research processes should be examined further in order to eliminate health disparities and build capacity amongst refugee communities.

Pivoting a Community-Based Participatory Research Project for Mental Health and Immigrant Youth in Philadelphia During COVID-19.

Research has documented the need for mental health services among refugee and immigrant youth. A joint collaboration on a community-based participatory research (CBPR) research project between a university, a local art and health collective, and an immigrant and refugee organization sought to identify and understand the mental health needs and strategies for immigrant youth in Philadelphia through youth discussion and engagement in a variety of art workshops. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this CBPR research project was forced to make several programmatic changes, such as shifting to a virtual setting, that impacted project implementation and intended outcomes. These changes highlight valuable lessons and practical implications in pivoting a program during COVID-19 to continue working with marginalized communities with limited resources, including barriers to technology access, at a time when effectively addressing mental health for immigrant youth has become both more challenging and pressing.

Community-based Versus Traditional Research Among Older Minority Women With Urinary Incontinence.

The aim of this study was to evaluate research retention of older minority women with urinary incontinence (UI) using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) versus a traditional research approach. An ancillary prospective study was conducted within an ongoing pilot randomized clinical trial to treat UI. Participants were recruited using CBPR in collaboration with a local community versus a traditional research approach at an academic center. Inclusion criteria were women 65 years and older and symptomatic UI. The primary outcome was the randomization rate defined as the proportion of women randomized into the randomized clinical trial out of screened participants. Screening and consent rates were also evaluated. Pearson χ2, Fisher exact, and t tests were used. The effect of CBPR on research retention rates was expressed as odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). There were 10 and 88 women screened in the CBPR and traditional research groups, respectively. The CBPR participants were Hispanic (n = 10, 100%) and older (78.4 ± 8.3 years; P < 0.01). Most of the traditional research participants were non-Hispanic Black (n = 55, 62.5%) and younger (71.0 ± 4.9 years). The CBPR group had higher rates of screening (76.9% vs 40.6%; P = 0.01), consent (80% vs 44.3%; P = 0.045), and randomization (50.0% vs 14.8%; P < 0.01) compared with the traditional research group. Community-based participatory research increased the odds of research retention during screening (OR, 4.9; 95% CI, 1.3-18.2), consent (OR, 5.0; 95% CI, 1.0-25.0), and randomization (OR, 5.8; 95% CI, 1.5-22.7). Compared with traditional research, CBPR yielded higher research retention among older minority women with UI in a clinical study.

Relationship-building to develop an Indigenous community-based epidemiological study investigating developmental resilience factors among children with prenatal substance exposure

Tribal Nations experience substance misuse at high rates often attributed to historical and contemporary traumas. In response, several Tribal Nations are addressing these issues through efforts to promote recovery and prevention to substance misuse. Study objectives were to partner with a Tribal Nation to develop a study to explore factors that contribute to the wellbeing of families to children with prenatal substance exposure and disseminate findings that can be translated back into the community. We applied Community-based participatory research (CBPR), strengths-based, and community-driven approaches during this two-year study development phase. We experienced challenges and identified solutions to partnering with one Tribal Nation on an epidemiological mixed-methods study centered on families with children that have prenatal substance exposure. Key inputs were becoming familiarizing with the community setting, structural supports for CBPR research, incorporating Indigenous CBPR principles, and developing a Community Advisory Team. We successfully collaborated with the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes Early Childhood Services program to develop a robust study design and a dissemination plan to ensure translation of study findings to the community. The robust study design consisted of common themes specific to a highly stigmatized study population, substance-abusing pregnant women, to protect participant confidentiality. Research alignment with community goals, allotting meaningful time to develop a research partnership, and incorporating culturally sensitive and community-relevant measures contributed to the successful development of an effective and rigorous study to better serve the Tribal Nation on addressing substance misuse.

The power of community-based participatory research: Ethical and effective ways of researching

ABSTRACT In this article we explore ethical and effective standards of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as a practice that differentiates itself from conventional research. We emphasize the fundamental and active role of community in participatory processes by legitimizing multiple forms of knowledge through a variety of methods that together provide discovery and dissemination of the findings. The goal of CBPR is to directly or indirectly achieve social transformation and social/ environmental justice. Researchers and community participants equally share control over the research, results and outputs. We present three case studies, highlighting some of the ethical concerns and difficulties encountered in the research process and speak to the implementation of key principles that sustain CBPR. The research follows a “slow” praxis, with relationship building and learning about local contexts, offering diverse ways of involving community, using innovative tools and approaches. Finally, we present considerations on how CBPR research can be done effectively and ethically, drawing attention to some research gaps.

"Collaboration Toward One Collective Goal": A Mixed-Methods Study of Short-Term Learning Outcomes and Long-Term Impacts Among Students Participating in an Undergraduate Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Course.

Background: Research shows positive learning outcomes for students participating in service learning. However, the impacts of undergraduate student participation in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) courses are minimally studied.Methods: We used a triangulation mixed-methods design approach to analyze short- and long-term (1–5 years post-course) data collected from 59 undergraduate students across 5 cohorts of a CBPR course (2014–19). Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data and descriptive statistics and frequencies were generated to analyze the quantitative data.Results: We developed five key themes based on short-term qualitative data: integration of CBPR and traditional research skills; importance of community engagement in research; identity; accountability; and collaboration. Themes from qualitative course evaluations aligned with these findings. Long-term qualitative data revealed that former students gained research knowledge, research skills, and professional skills and then applied these in other settings. This aligns with quantitative findings, where >79% of respondents reported that course participation “extensively” improved their research skills. Post-course, students still reflected on the importance of community engagement in research and reported a substantially enhanced likelihood of civic engagement.Discussion/Conclusions: Students gained critical knowledge and skills that positively impact their ability to engage in community-based work well after the end of course participation. Some students reported considering research-oriented careers and graduate programs for the first time after course participation. Collaborative learning experiences with community partners and members encouraged students to reflect on research designs that center community voices. We stress here that community partnerships require extensive cultivation, but they can create opportunities to translate findings directly back to communities and provide numerous benefits to undergraduate students. We hope that our findings provide the information needed to consider pilot testing practice-based CBPR courses in a variety of public health training contexts.

Learning to Fail Better: Reflections on the Challenges and Risks of Community-Based Participatory Mental Health Research With Inuit Youth in Nunavut.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a mine field of moral dilemmas. Even when carefully planned for and continuously critically reflected upon, conflicts are likely to occur as part of the process. This paper illustrates the lessons learned from “Building on Strengths in Naujaat”, a resiliency initiative with the objective of promoting sense of belonging, collective efficacy, and well-being in Inuit youth. Naujaat community members over time established strong meaningful relationships with academic researchers. Youth took on the challenge of organizing community events, trips out on the land, and fundraisers. While their creativity and resourcefulness are at the heart of the initiative, this paper explores conflicts and pitfalls that accompanied it. Based on three themes – struggles in coming together as academic and community partners, the danger of perpetuating colonial power structures, and the challenges of navigating complex layers of relations within the community – we examine the dilemmas unearthed by these conflicts, including an exploration of how much we as CBPR researchers are at risk of reproducing colonial power structures. Acknowledging and addressing power imbalances, while striving for transparency, accountability, and trust, are compelling guiding principles needed to support Indigenous communities on the road toward health equity.

Collaborating in a penta-helix structure within a community based participatory research programme: \u2018Wrestling with hierarchies and getting caught in isolated downpipes\u2019

BackgroundIn the light of the existence of social inequalities in health, a CBPR (Community Based Participatory Research) programme for health promotion started in Malmö, Sweden, in 2017. The programme was based on a penta-helix structure and involved a strategic steering group with representatives from academia, voluntary organisations, the business sector, the public sector, and citizens from the community where the programme took place. The aim of this study was to explore how the penta-helix collaboration worked from the perspectives of all partners, including the citizens.MethodsIndividual interviews, that were based on a guide for self-reflection and evaluation of CBPR partnerships, were conducted with the representatives (N = 13) on three occasions, during the period 2017–2019. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interviews.ResultsSix themes emerged from the analysis, including Challenges for the partners in the penta-helix collaboration; Challenges for the professionals at the local level; Citizen-driven processes are important for the penta-helix collaboration; Health promoters are essential to build trust between different sectors of society; Shift of power; and System changes take time. The analysis shows that the penta-helix collaboration worked well at the local level in a governance-related model for penta-helix cooperation. In the overall cooperation it was the citizen-driven processes that made the programme work. However, the findings also indicated an inflexibility in organisations with hierarchical structures that created barriers for citizen involvement in the penta-helix collaboration.ConclusionThe main issue uncovered in this study is the problem of vertically organised institutions where discovery and innovation processes flow down from the top, thereby eliminating the essential input of the people and community that they are supposed to serve. The success of the programme was based on an interprofessional cooperation at a local level, where local professions worked together with voluntary organisations, social workers, CBPR researchers from the university, citizens and local health promoters.

Assets and Challenges to Recruiting and Engaging Families in a Childhood Obesity Treatment Research Trial: Insights From Academic Partners, Community Partners, and Study Participants.

Background: There is need for the childhood obesity treatment literature to identify effective recruitment and engagement strategies for rural communities that are more likely to lack supportive infrastructure for healthy lifestyles and clinical research relative to their urban counterparts. This community case study examines recruitment and engagement strategies from a comparative effectiveness research (CER) trial of two family-based childhood obesity (FBCO) treatment interventions conducted in a medically underserved, rural region. Guided by a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and systems-based approach, the primary aim was to analyze interviews from academic partners, community partners, and parent study participants for recruitment and engagement assets, challenges, and lessons learned.Methods: Over the 3-year lifespan of the study, researchers conducted 288 interviews with Community Advisory Board members (n = 14), Parent Advisory Team members (n = 7), and study participants (n = 100). Using an inductive-deductive approach, interviews were broadly coded for recruitment and engagement assets, challenges, and recommendations; analyzed for descriptive sub-coding; and organized into stakeholder/organization and participant level themes. Codes were analyzed aggregately across time and examined for differences among stakeholders and parent study participants.Results: Adherence to CBPR principles and development of strong community partnerships facilitated recruitment and engagement; however, variability in recruitment and engagement success impacted partner confidence, threatened outcome validity, and required additional resources. Specifically, assets and challenges emerged around eight key needs. Three were at the stakeholder/organization level: (1) readiness of stakeholders to conduct CBPR research, (2) development of sustainable referral protocols, and (3) development of participant engagement systems. The remaining five were at the participant level: (1) comfort and trust with research, (2) awareness and understanding of the study, (3) intervention accessibility, (4) intervention acceptability, and (5) target population readiness. Future recommendations included conducting readiness assessments and awareness campaigns, piloting and evaluating recruitment and engagement strategies, identifying participant barriers to engagement and finding a priori solutions, and fostering stakeholder leadership to develop sustainable protocols.Conclusion: Collective findings from multiple perspectives demonstrate the need for multi-leveled approaches focusing on infrastructure supports and strategies to improve stakeholder and participant awareness of, and capacity for, recruiting and engaging medically underserved, rural families in a FBCO CER trial.

Confronting Structural Inequities: The Limits of Participation when Developing a Community Health Intervention with Syrian Refugees and Host Communities in Lebanon.

Lebanon is one of the most unequal countries in the world, whose economy, social welfare and public health system struggle to meet the needs of the Lebanese and over one million Syrian refugees. Researchers applied Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodology in collaboration with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in an underserved Beirut neighborhood from 2014 through 2016, aiming to address health inequities, build social cohesion among refugees and host populations, and empower community members to develop a community health intervention. We recruited a community advisory board (CAB), conducted six focus groups and sixteen individual interviews, and held several community meetings. In response to the study findings, NGO staff, researchers and community members agreed to work together on a trash collection initiative as a community health intervention. Ultimately, we found the CBPR toolkit to be insufficient to the empirical reality: a series of structural challenges due to entrenched local and national hierarchies, ineffective political processes, and inter- and intra-group conflict driven by competition over privatized social services. Together these resulted in a lack of trust in the collaborative process wherein study participants solicited researchers for aid in return for their involvement, mirroring the Lebanese patronage system. Ultimately, the most expedient path toward change was not through empowerment of oppressed community participants, but through the action of already powerful local individuals. In conclusion, structural inequalities limit the participatory and emancipatory possibilities of CBPR research. Power mapping exercises, which are often used in community organizing, offer an important opportunity to assess viability and lay the groundwork for CBPR projects. Academic and popular media in the Middle East often focus on religious, sectarian conflict; however, in our study conflict both between and among social groups was driven by competition over material resources more than cultural or religious differences.

Engaging Immigrant and Racialized Communities in Community-Based Participatory Research During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches have been important avenues for addressing community vulnerability during pandemics and times of crises. There has been little guidance, however, on how to approach CBPR within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic where physical distancing and closure of essential community organizations became the norm. This study discusses challenges and possibilities of using CBPR during a pandemic to address the needs of immigrant and racialized older adults in Alberta, Canada. Two case studies of active research projects that aim to engage immigrant and racialized older adults are presented. Three key challenges are identified related to research activities during the pandemic: (a) pivoting as new foci emerge, (b) recognizing inequity in research participation, and (c) reflecting on well-being in the research team. Approaches to addressing these challenges are highlighted with recommendations for future considerations in CBPR research within vulnerable communities.

Ethical challenges experienced by researchers in community-based participatory research

Abstract Background Political, economic and climate events continue to bring the dismantling of communities and creation of new ones. Understanding successful models of adaptation and working with communities to address their health and wellbeing needs requires ethically sound public health research. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has been proposed as an equitable, empowering partnership approach to collaborative health research that encapsulates analysis, advocacy and action for the future wellbeing of communities. Meanwhile, a strong interest in ethical implications of CBPR continues in international literature, yet with a notable lack of research that captures the experience of researchers who had ethical challenges in their CBPR studies. The aim of this research was to address this lack of evidence by exploring those experiences of CBPR researchers internationally. Methods An innovative data collection method was designed utilising a purpose-built blog. This internet-based, qualitative online study enabled asynchronous international data collection on the blog. Participants were researchers with experience of CBPR and were recruited through social media platforms. Blog narratives of first-hand experiences of CBPR researchers were analysed using thematic analysis. Results The themes that emerged from blog data analysis were researchers' challenges with balancing participant protection and autonomy, dealing with partnership tensions, and the enduring impacts on the researchers. Conclusions This study enhances our understanding of ethical challenges in CBPR with evidence of enduring impacts on researchers of the 'tightrope' they walked in the interests of maintaining research integrity and ethical responsibility towards their partnering communities. Challenges arose largely from complexities of CBPR coupled with rigid regulatory structures of human research ethics review that struggles to respond adequately in the interests of communities and researchers. Key messages At this critical time for the future of humanity, communities can benefit from CBPR. A positive way forward for ethical review of CBPR exists for those with power to make a difference.

Utilizing CBPR Charrette in Community-Academic Research Partnerships – What Stakeholders Should Know

The purpose of this article is to describe how researchers and community stakeholders can use Charrette processes to effectively build partnerships and stimulate successful community-based participatory research (CBPR). The term “Charrette” originated in the architectural design field. Kotval et al. (2014) described the Charrette as “a process of collaboration, intense dialogue and deliberation among participants to promote understanding and facilitate planning activity” (p. 494). The use of Charrette in CBPR is still an emerging concept in the literature, however, a few key studies have demonstrated that Charrette is a promising tool for CBPR researchers and stakeholders. Kennedy’s (2017) eight Charrette characteristics serve as an evaluative framework for examining the use of the Charrette in the two CBPR projects described in this paper. These cases illustrate how the CBPR Charrette was tailored to fit the needs of the project stakeholders. Recommendations for utilizing the CBPR Charrette are discussed, and important considerations are highlighted for community and academic groups who engage patients and community stakeholders in the research process.

Characteristics and Practices Within Research Partnerships for Health and Social Equity.

As federal research funding focuses more on academic/community collaborations to address health inequities, it is important to understand characteristics of these partnerships and how they work to achieve health equity outcomes. This study built on previous National Institutes of Health-funded research to (a) describe partnership characteristics and processes of federally funded, community-based participatory research (CBPR) or community-engaged research projects; (b) explore characteristics of these projects by stage of funding; and (c) build on previous understanding of partnership promising practices. Between fall 2016 and spring 2017, we completed a cross-sectional analysis and principal component analysis of online survey data from key informants of federally funded CBPR and community-engaged research projects. Respondents for 179 projects (53% response rate) described project characteristics (e.g., type of partner, stage of partnership, and population) and the use of promising practices (e.g., stewardship, advisory board roles, training topics) by stage of partnership. Projects involved community, healthcare, and government partners, with 49% of respondents reporting their project was in the early stage of funding. More projects focused on Black/African American populations, whereas principal investigators were mostly White. The more established a partnership (e.g., with multiple projects), the more likely it employed the promising practices of stewardship (i.e., community safeguards for approval), community advisory boards, and training on values and power. Community engagement is a developmental process with differences between early-stage and established CBPR partnerships. Engaging in active reflection and adopting promising partnering practices are important for CBPR partnerships working to improve health equity. The data provided in this study provide key indicators for reflection.

Abstract 1627: Using internet-platform technology to train community-based researchers in developing countries: Lessons learned from a Caribbean study

Abstract Cancer is increasing as a health crisis in the Caribbean region. In the U.S. advocate engagement and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) have been used successfully to partner with community members in each stage of the research process thereby utilizing the knowledge and experience of those individuals for improved community responsive research and greater societal benefit. We utilized advocate engagement and CBPR towards building a cancer prevention program of research between U.S. and Caribbean researchers. In 2016-2017, a two-phased CBPR research study was initiated to address breast and cervical cancer screening in the four countries of the English-speaking Windward Islands of the Caribbean. The aims were to determine 1) community member’s perceptions of breast and cervical cancer screening and 2) gatekeepers’ perceptions of the quality and availability of breast and cervical cancer screening and treatment services. Mobile communication and internet-platform technologies were used to successfully train Caribbean community researchers on qualitative data collection and analysis methods. Our results showed that the incorporation of internet-based technology facilitated training, communication, social interactions, and alleviated transportation challenges. In particular, mobile platforms including GoToTraining, WhatsApp, Dedoose, Google Drive, and email were to used to deliver interactive training modules to community researchers and facilitate the collaborative development of recruitment materials, data collection instruments, data management, reports, manuscripts and results dissemination. Participatory research studies of this nature not only shed light on the cancer burden in developing nations but also builds community trust and capacity to engage in future international research. Citation Format: Kamilah B. Thomas-Purcell, Marva Primus Primus-Jospeh, Christine Richards, Lydia S. Atkins, Julie Blaze, Patsy Wylie, Ann Marie Burnie James, Kimlin Ashing. Using internet-platform technology to train community-based researchers in developing countries: Lessons learned from a Caribbean study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1627.