Democratizing Community Problem Solving: A Comparative Case Study of Participatory Needs Assessment

Study Purpose

Community based participatory research (CBPR) describes collaborative research approaches among community organizations, groups, and residents (Gutiérrez et al., 2017). Originating within twentieth century community organizing traditions (Reisch & Garvin, 2016), it’s prominent in public health, community psychology, social work, and other applied academic disciplines (Wallerstein, et al., 2017). Within this research tradition, community practitioners combine practice and research skills to generate comprehensive knowledge of community needs (Chambers, & Cowan, 2018; Kretzman, & McKnight,1993). At the same time, scholars and practitioners continue to wrestle with integrating CBPR into community assessment to democratize knowledge, promote equity, inclusion, and broad participation (Ellerly, et al., 2018; Gutiérrez et al., 2017). The overarching goal of this paper involves developing transferable knowledge in applying CBPR in collaborative community assessment in various contexts. Authors seek to broaden practitioners’ and researchers’ skills and practical knowledge in implementing community engaged needs assessment.

The overarching research questions:

1. What patterns emerge across Community Based Participatory Assessment in interprofessional coalition building and comprehensive community development?
2. What are some key similarities, differences, and challenges?
3. How does community based participatory assessment in two exploratory cases practically align with gold standard approaches to CBPR?

Methods

This study features two exploratory case studies from existing community initiatives, one a community-university partnership and the other, a neighborhood organizing and capacity building partnership. Utilizing comparative case study design, authors identify key patterns and themes across each, using a variety of qualitative data collected from partnership documents, focus groups, surveys, and interviews. The authors critically analyze each case through the lens of the nine principles of CBPR (Israel et al., 2019). These principles provide ethical and applied guidance for researchers and community partners and include the following: (1) Recognize community as a unit of identity; (2) Build on strengths and resources; (3) Facilitate partnership in all research phases; (4) Promote co-learning and capacity building; (5) Balance learning and action; (6) Emphasize local relevance and ecological perspective; (7) Involve system development through cyclical and iterative processes; (8) Disseminates findings and knowledge to everyone; (9) Involves long-term process and commitment.

Results

Results illuminate challenges in CBPR assessment. Each case grapples with the feasibility of aligning practices with principles for CBPR in community contexts. Findings explore power dynamics between and within community systems, groups, and organizations; ignoring community assets and strengths; who constitutes “community”; what constitutes research; system/organizational barriers to interprofessional community-engaged collaboration; and committed investment in participation across partners. Results also acknowledge community impacts of both participatory assessments, and how they link to patterns that emerge in the data, such as building capacity and community driven project outcomes.

Implications

Implications expose needs for precise parameters around ethical principles, acknowledging feasibility challenges in implementing principles, use and misuse of power, and overcoming contextual challenges. Dynamics differ from community to community, state to state, and system to system. Results infer needs for clarity to determine what voices should be amplified alongside more rigorous analysis and interrogation of power and feasibility relative to unique levels of community, professional, and research partner participation.