Health Equity through Knowledge Democracy—Rationale and Methods in Community Based Participatory Research

Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and other forms of community-engaged research (CenR) has received growing attention in fields like social work, public health, education, nursing, sociology, etc, over the past several decades. Increasingly, academic-community partnerships are at the forefront of strategies to improving social and health status for vulnerable populations. As defined by the Kellogg Foundation, CBPR is a “collaborative approach to research that equitably involves all partners in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings. CBPR begins with a research topic of importance to the community with the aim of combining knowledge and action for social change.” it is an overall orientation to research, which fundamentally changes the relationship between researchers and researched. With roots in popular education in Third World nations of Latin America, Asia and Africa, and in other traditions of action and participatory action research, it has been applied in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere in a range of disciplines and settings. The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with a general overview of theories, principles and strategies of CenR and CBPR, and an appreciation of advantages and limitations of these approaches. The presenter will present empirical evidence for current guidelines and standards for CenR and CBPR approaches across diverse populations.