Conducting Research With Community Groups

Abstract

Nurse scientists are increasingly recognizing the necessity of conducting research with community groups to effectively address complex health problems and successfully translate scientific advancements into the community. While several barriers to conducting research with community groups exist, community based participatory research (CBPR) has the potential to mitigate these barriers. CBPR has been employed in programs of research that respond in culturally sensitive ways to identify community needs and thereby address current health disparities. This manuscript presents case studies that demonstrate how CBPR principles guided the development of: (a) a healthy body weight program for urban, underserved African-American women, (b) a reproductive health educational intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women, and (c) a pilot anxiety/depression intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women. These case studies illustrate the potential of CBPR as an orientation to research that can be employed effectively in non-research intensive academic environments.

A Participatory Community Diagnosis of a Rural Community from the Perspective of Its Women, Leading to Proposals for Action

“…The design corresponded to a community diagnosis following community-based participatory research methods [2], followed by qualitative data collection and interpretation based on ethnographic methods [24,25]. This allowed the researchers to provide context for the community as well as its history, language, and general characteristics.…”

“…This diagnosis is meant to provide a detailed description of the community as well as an evaluation of the community’s health, including the main factors responsible for it and the needs felt by the population [ 1 ]. There is ample consensus in pointing out that the proposed interventions must respond to the specific needs expressed by the community, which requires working together to identify these needs and how to address them, taking into consideration the different factors that influence the community and developing models and strategies that allow the best approaches [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. When successfully implemented, actions that were identified as part of the community diagnosis help strengthen ties between different actors in the community (i.e., neighbors, those working in public health services, institutions, etc.).…”

Toward a Beloved Community: Facilitated Group Listening as a Tool for Community Development and Civic Engagement

“…This process is referred to as the "school of democracy hypothesis, " adapted from de Tocqueville's writings on the benefits of voluntary associations (Halpern, 2005;Lichterman, 2005;McFarland & Thomas, 2006). Similarly, community input enables better applied research, allowing researchers to solve real problems of community importance rather than simply studying problems of interest to scholars (Doornbos et al, 2015;Hossain, 2019;Israel et al, 2001;Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008;Wallerstein & Duran, 2010).…”