Add to My clippings

Evidence Library

image_pdfimage_print

Title: Community-based participatory research (CBPR): Assessing the evidence.
Author: Viswanathan, V., Eng, E., Gartlehner, G., Lohr, K., Griffith, D., Rhodes, S., Samuel-Hodge, C., Maty, S., Lux, L., Webb, L., Sutton, S., Swinson, T., Jackman, A. & Whitener, L.
Date Published: 2004
Reference: Evidence Report/Technology Assessment No. 99. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Are service users or carers authors: No/Not Known

Abstract:

Aim: To carry out a systematic review of the literature relating to CBPR and its role in improving community health.

Method: A group of experts including community research partners, researchers and funders helped shape the review, influencing the search terms and research questions.

Findings/recommendations: A review of the publications which reported on an evaluation of CBPR showed that community involvement influences the research process by:

  • making research tools more culturally relevant
  • helping test research tools - which improved their reliability
  • sometimes changing the direction of the research or identifying priorities
  • improving recruitment and retention of research participants
  • carrying out surveys in the languages of the target groups
  • increasing external validity.

It also benefits the individuals involved as well as the communities by increasing their skills and capacity. In addition, community members tend to appreciate more of the long-term gains of research, in comparison with the short-term nuisance of data collection.

Disadvantages of CBPR were not frequently reported but included:

  • introducing bias in recruitment
  • decreased randomisation
  • selection of a group of motivated groups not representative of the broader population.

Many reports described the lengthy process of building partnerships between institutions and communities, but formal evaluation of this process was rare.

The authors also comment that researchers often publish their findings and their processes in separate articles. Otherwise they are forced to distil 'years of partnership development and collaboration into a few descriptive words in a small number of journals willing to publish this more descriptive evidence'. This means that information about the implementation of CBPR is often missing.

External link: The following links will take you to information on this entry on an external website. INVOLVE is not responsible for the content or the reliability of the external websites. Link to full report

Related entry: none currently available

Categories: health
public health
social care
Identifying topics, prioritising and commissioning
Designing research
Undertaking research
Analysing and interpreting
impact on research
impact on service users involved
impact of public involvement
journal article
Recruitment

Date Entered: 2009/01/28

Date Edited: 2012/12/06

Additional Info:
« Back to search results