How to Do Engaged Scholarship Well
August 2, 2012
- Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA (2011). Principles of community engagement, second edition. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pce_execsummary.html
- This “primer” provides public health professionals, health care providers, researchers, and community-based leaders and organizations with both a science base and practical guidance for engaging partners in projects that may affect them. The principles of engagement can be used by people in a range of roles, from the program funder who needs to know how to support community engagement to the researcher or community leader who needs hands-on, practical information on how to mobilize the members of a community to partner in research initiatives. In addition, it provides tools for those who are leading efforts to improve population health through community engagement.
- Ahmed, S. M &. Palermo, A. S. (2010). Community engagement in research: Frameworks for education and peer review. American Journal of Public Health, 100(8), 1380-1387.
- This paper describes the National Institutes of Health Director’s Council of Public Representatives’ (DCPR) community engagement framework, which was designed to educate researchers to create and sustain authentic community – academic partnerships that will increase accountability and equality between the partners. The framework includes values, strategies to operationalize each value, and potential outcomes of their use in community engaged research, as well as a peer review criteria for evaluating research that engages communities.
- Andrews, J.O., Cox, M.J., Newman, S.D., & Meadows, O. (2011). Development and evaluation of a toolkit to assess partnership readiness for community-based participatory research. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 5(2), 183-188. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623021
- The CPBR Partnership Readiness Toolkit was created in response to “academic-community partners’ interest in exploring new ways to improve partnership outcomes” (Andrews et al, 188). This paper outlines the contents of this 75-page toolkit, describes how to use it and where to access it for free online. The author also discusses the evaluation and limitations of this toolkit, concluding with a section on the toolkit’s purpose.
- Noting that the current, conventional approach to research does little to strengthen scholars’ participation in civic life, this article advocates and describes models of research that promote more democratic inquiry methods, more reciprocal relationships between researchers and their subjects, and new collaborations between research institutions and communities. Examples of programs and initiatives are offered.
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520273368
- The past two decades have brought important changes to the ways archaeologists engage with indigenous, descendant, local communities and the public at large. This book outlines the principles of CBPR and demonstrates how CBPR can be effectively applied to archeology. It provides theoretical discussions as well as practical examples of CBPR in archeology.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-4762.2012.01038.x/full
- In this paper, two management professors propose a new model for conducting engaged scholarship—the dialogical model. This model comprises five activities: specifying a research question, elaborating local knowledge, developing conceptual knowledge, communicating knowledge, and activating knowledge. The dialogical model provides guidance on how to maintain academic value and practical relevance in tension throughout the research process, and on how to justify validity in pragmatic constructivism. The authors explain how the dialogical model was developed in the pragmatic constructivist epistemological paradigm, and suggest how the model can be mobilized in other epistemological frameworks.
- This handbook is a guide for faculty, lecturers, graduate students, and staff to create, implement, or strengthen engaged scholarship courses. The handbook contains six sections: Engaged Public Scholarship, Building Campus-Community Partnerships, Developing Engaged Scholarship Courses, Supporting Student Engagement with the Community, Deepening the Learning with Reflection, Developing Evaluation and Assessment for Engaged Scholarship.
- Women’s empowerment is key to the health and rights of women worldwide, and achieving women’s empowerment requires approaches that “promote participation and incite action”(Aziz, 303). This paper describes Aga Khan University’s (AKU) participation in Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC), a five-component study that used a participatory action research approach. The AKU-WEMC “adapted the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools to explore women’s perceptions and reflections on their existent situation and aspired needs with respect to empowerment, community’s overall health, mental health, reproductive health, daily work load, access to resources, participation in decision-making and violence against women” (Aziz, 103). A five-step model of participatory action research for women’s empowerment is presented as a tool for community-based work and social change.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=0d6b559a-b6cc-4afe-ba23-fda09f0d568b%40sessionmgr110&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=79629518
- This article is a first attempt to conceptualize a process-oriented methodology for studying administrative practice. This methodology draws on approaches such as action research and policy mediation. But, first and foremost, the methodology calls for an actionable researcher who is responsive to the inherent resistances and affordances of the process of coproducing knowledge with policy actors, enabling the researcher to act in response to the needs of problematic situations at hand.
- The increase in health disparities signifies the importance of employing an ethical approach to CBPR. This article provides background on various ethical issues in health promotion and education practices/projects, and then uses a CBPR project located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley as a case example to discuss “ethical issues such as the importance of increased community involvement in research, ensuring that communities benefit from the research, sharing leadership roles, and sensitive issues regarding data collection and sharing”. The researchers from this project worked with community members to develop a code of ethics to guide the intervention, which was comprised of six principles: respect, fiduciary transparency, fairness, informed consent: always voluntary; reciprocity; and equal voice and disclosure. The article discusses these principles and in conclusion advises practitioners to employ them in order to build develop trusting relationships, that can help reduce the potential for less-than-optimal outcomes and more likely develop into “meaningful and sustainable partnerships”.
- Community-based research (CBR) is an increasingly familiar approach to addressing social challenges. Nonetheless, the role it plays in attaining community impact is unclear and largely unstudied. Here the authors discuss an emerging framework aimed toward fostering community impact through university and community civic engagement. They describe how, through application of this framework to initiatives intended to reduce obesity, CBR might be focused for greater effect (Beckman, Penney & Cockburn, 2011, p. 83).
- This paper analyzes the effectiveness of a qualitative research method, the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), used in a CBPR project in Mendocino and Humboldt counties of California. Did the CIT method facilitate or impede the engagement of the community in the research process? The authors describe how the CIT method was used in a CBPR research project involving an academic researcher and two community-based cancer support centers, reporting that the CIT method effectively facilitated community engagement in the research process.
- The authors propose that CBPR can benefit from a systems science framework to represent the complex and dynamic characteristics of a community and identify intervention points and potential “tipping points”. Systems thinking tools can assist all CBPR stakeholders in visualizing how community factors are interrelated, and by potentially identifying the most salient intervention points.
- This article focuses on campus-community partnerships thats can leverage both campus and community resources to address critical issues in local communities. Campus-community partnerships are described as a series of interpersonal relationships between (a) campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students and (b) community leaders, agency personnel, and members of communities. The phases of relationships (i.e., initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and the dynamics of relationships (i.e., exchanges, equity, distribution of power) are explored to provide service-learning instructors and campus personnel with a clearer understanding of how to develop healthy campus-community partnerships.
- The Tools of Engagement web-based, curriculum modules are designed to: 1) Introduce undergraduate students to the concept of university-community engagement, 2) Develop their community-based research and engagement skills, and 3) Assist with training the next generation of engaged scholars.
- The Tools of Engagement are intentionally non-discipline specific, allowing for adaptation and customized utilization across the curriculum. The five modules focus on the university’s commitment to engage with community, understanding the concepts of power and privilege in the context of engagement, effectively working in groups, building successful partnerships, developing negotiation techniques, etc. MSU welcomes colleagues from other institutions to utilize Tools of Engagement and collaborate in a joint research. If interested in pursuing collaborative use, contact Robert Brown,brownr23@msu.edu, or Karen McKnight Casey, caseyk@msu.edu, for access to the secure pages of the site.
- This article describes Michigan State University’s “transformative engagement process,” an interactive process in which all partners – academic and community – apply critical thinking skills to complex community problems. Based on Mezirow’s transformational learning (1991) it is iterative in nature and informed by a university-wide model of engagement built on the land-grant tradition and by grounded principles from the literature and developing engagement practice. To be successful, partners must have appropriate and multiple ways – face to face and electronic – of making and sustaining connections to each other and to information that will help them move through transformations. The structures are designed to meet the needs of those engaged in partnerships while promoting evidence-based best practices in community agencies.
- Although community–academic partnerships are becoming a more common approach to addressing community health problems and engaging vulnerable populations in research, these partnerships continue to face particular challenges that impact their effectiveness, efficiency, and long-term sustainability. This article presents a modification of a “synergy-promoting model” (Lasker et al, 2001) for building and evaluating community–academic partnerships, which was used to establish a partnership between the University of Michigan and University of Detroit Mercy schools of nursing and the Family Care Network. The study outlines the theoretical framework of this model, and continues with a detailed account of applying the theory to practice by analyzing the interaction of three characteristics (trust, collaboration, and engagement) that can produce partnership synergy. Various lessons were learned, such as the importance of developing trust between stakeholders, conducting continual evaluation of the partnership, and giving attention to existence of power differentials among the partners. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the importance of using a theoretical framework to not only establish community-academic partnerships, but as a guide to sustaining an environment that encourages open communication and collaboration to devise strategies that can help build trust and address power differentials.
http://engagementaustralia.org.au/shared-resources/publications/journals/
- This paper presents a new awareness-action framework for universities to use to assess, and improve, their engagement with disadvantaged communities. The authors present the research from which the framework was developed, and explain how universities can use the framework to engage with disadvantaged communities in an inclusive and equitable manner.
- The dissemination of research findings to participating individuals and institutions upon project completion is an important principle of community-based research. This document offers information on developing a dissemination plan, general writing guidelines, and strategies for dissemination (i.e. media coverage, press release, research summary document, flyers, brochures, policy briefs, letter of thanks). Also included in this resource are sample dissemination documents.
- This paper describes the lessons learned from an international research partnership between two northern universities, one southern university, and a southern faith-based organization. The research project evaluated a school-based HIV prevention intervention with South African adolescents, and through this process seven fieldwork-related challenges were revealed. Lessons learned from these challenges—along with how they prepared for each one, what happened on the ground, and possible unintended consequences—are described in detail.
- Community and organizational readiness can influence whether health interventions are implemented, so CBPR partnerships may consider using readiness assessments as a tool for tailoring interventions to specific communities. This article presents a critical review of 13 community and organizational readiness assessment models. The review concludes that readiness is multidimensional, but finds four essential components of readiness that are critical to assess.
- Using data from a CPBR case study, the San Francisco Chinatown Restaurant Worker Health and Safety Project, and drawing on literature on immigrant political incorporation, the authors examine the links between the contexts of the Chinese immigrant worker community, adaptations made by the research collaborative, and study outcomes. It concludes by sharing lessons learned on how to adapt CBPR principles and processes in response to community context and partners’ needs.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-172X.2012.02026.x/abstract
- Increasing globalization, population diversity, and health disparities among non-dominant cultures necessitate cross-cultural research. This article presents approaches to dealing with the challenges of cross-cultural research, which an emphasis on how a CBPR approach can be used to conduct culturally competent research.
- This paper explains three dimensions that universities must attend to in order to create beneficial and sustainable engagement with the community: internal (characteristics of the university), external (characteristics of the community), and personal (characteristics of the faculty). The authors argue that sustainable types of engagement are those that positively address each of these dimensions, and lead to valued capacity building for the community. They discuss the experience of Eastern Michigan University’s Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Communities to illustrate the challenges and strategies for building successful university-community relationships.
- This resource provides a table containing criteria suggested for reviewers who wish to assess community engagement research proposals effectively, and evaluate research applications involving community engagement. The framework is designed for both principal investigators (from academic institutions) and co-investigators (from academic institutions or communities)
- A brief practical essay addressing six critical areas for faculty consideration in undertaking community engaged research: institutional context; establishing legitimacy; community credibility; funding; methodological difficulties; collaboration.
- How should researchers select the geographic locations of interventions to reduce health disparities? This paper presents the lessons learned from community-engaged selection process, in which a community-academic partnership of over 20 organizations worked to generate a 5-stage process to select an area for diabetes prevention and control programs. In conclusion, the authors suggest that using a participatory approach can be an effective way to define geographic areas for research and intervention.
- The Lower Mississippi Delta Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative (Delta NIRI) is an academic–community partnership between seven academic institutions and three communities in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. This paper explores research conducted on the experience of academics in a federally funded CBPR sustainable nutrition intervention. Focus groups were conducted to gather the academic perspective on their experience devising research plans, implementing programs, and evaluating outcomes. The study found that the majority of faculty and staff members were interested in this project because it was an “egalitarian and potentially more successful type of research” (Downey, 744). This paper provides a detailed account of the engaged scholars’ perspective, citing perceived barriers and successful strategies.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/casp.2106/abstract
- This article is a case-based reflection on the dilemmas surrounding community-based research and how it can impact upon the experiences of both the community and the researchers facilitating the project. Reflections are contextualized within discussions from various academic orientations within the psychological and social science literature.
- With interest in community-based participatory research (CBPR) growing, there is a commensurate need and demand for educational resources to build the knowledge and skills needed to develop and sustain effective CBPR partnerships. This evidence-based curriculum is intended as a tool for community-institutional partnerships using or planning to use a CBPR approach to improving health, but it is relevant for all CBPR efforts. It can be used by partnerships just forming as well as mature ones. Chapters include: getting grounded, starting a partnership, developing a partnership, trust and communication, securing and distributing funding, disseminating results, and sustainability.
- This article seeks to make explicit the essential features of an engagement model based on the separate engagement experiences of four colleagues–a sociologist, rural developer, teacher educator, and community psychologist. Shares and discusses what engagement means to them, then shares interpretations of the conceptual, philosophical, and normative underpinnings of their work.
- In these two volumes contributors capture the rich diversity of institutions and partnerships that characterize the contemporary landscape and future of engaged scholarship. Volume 1 addresses such issues as the application of engaged scholarship across types of colleges and universities and the current state of the movement. Volume 2 contains essays on such topics as current typologies, measuring effectiveness and accreditation, community–campus partnership development, national organizational models, and the future landscape.
- This article addresses the challenges with conducting qualitative analysis during CBPR projects, often caused by the wide range of academic preparation within the research team. The authors describe the process of conducting qualitative analysis of data on community perceptions of public maternity care in the Dominican Republic in a cross-cultural, CBPR study. The data analysis was conducted through experiential and conversational learning, which resulted in study findings that incorporated the thinking and speaking of all research team members—both community and academic.
- Like a prenuptial agreement when there are resources to share, these authors advocate that those seeking to establish community-campus partnerships develop an agreement before the work the partnership begins. The strength and success of the partnership is dependent on the process by which the relationship and its assets are clearly defined. Guidelines are presented for such a community impact statement.
- This set of guiding questions is intended to help community and university partners discuss critical issues as they develop and sustain partnerships for community-based participatory research. In order to create partnerships that share knowledge and reap mutual benefits, partners are invited to consider questions in four areas: Preparing the Ground; Making the Connections/Building the Relationships; Doing the Work; and The Harvest: Evaluation/Dissemination/Policy Implications/Completion. The process grew out of the lessons learned by community members, University of Minnesota faculty, and representatives of other public and private organizations involved in the Phillips Neighborhood Healthy Housing Collaborative. [A companion piece to Gust, S. & Jordan, C. (2006), immediately below.]
- Research projects on health disparities frequently involve multiple communities and academic institution, thus requiring review by many institutional review boards (IRBs). Review by multiple IRBs is problematic and redundant, especially in participatory projects. This article defines IRB harmonization, and discusses how the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Translational Research Network (RTRN) is working to create a community-partnered approach to streamlining IRB review across the network’s 18 grantee institutions.
- This book presents a participatory model for the evaluation of community health programs and policy interventions. It is a guide for public health and community health students, practitioners, and faculty to develop community-validated evaluation programs. Discussed are two evaluation frameworks that are most commonly used in public and community heath: the Donaldson three-step program theory-driven evaluation approach and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s six-step Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. Methods in community assessment, planning, program design, quantitative and qualitative data collection, data analysis, and dissemination of findings are outlined as a step-by-step process to program evaluation.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-6787.2012.00256.x/abstract
- In this paper, two Nursing professors describe their experience with using research to facilitate the integration of evidence into clinical practice at the point-of-care. Through their research, the professors developed the Queen’s University Research Roadmap for Knowledge Implementation (QuRKI), which they describe here. QuRKI serves as a guide for researchers in the formation of a strategic alliance with the practice community for undertaking evidence-informed reorganization of care.
http://informahealthcare.com/toc/ada/38/5
- When a CBPR intervention is implemented across multiple communities, the intervention can take different forms in each community. This has made it difficult to compare a CBPR intervention across settings. In response to this challenge, this study develops a method for quantifying intervention exposure in CBPR interventions that differ in their forms across communities. The method involves standardizing interventions by the functions an intervention serves (protective factors promoted) instead of their forms or components (specific activities).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2012.00719.x/abstract
- This article, written by two professors in the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, is a practical guide to conducting community engaged research (CEnR). The authors describe the defining elements of CEnR and necessary considerations in CEnR—(1) place (as research moves beyond the university) (2) time (and the need for long-term relationships), (3) commitment to community-centered research, and (4) weighing risk, benefit and outcomes from various perspectives. They then discuss practical steps for engaging in CEnR. Finally, the article explains how the outcomes of CeNR make it an effective form of research for improving community health.
- A comprehensive publication on how to do CBPR, including partnership formation, community assessment, defining a research question, documenting and evaluating partnerships, and disseminating and applying the results.
- Does engaged scholarship play an important role in the revitalization of the humanities in the 21st century? Author Gregory Jay asserts that “the future of the humanities depends upon two interrelated innovations: the organized implementation of project based engaged learning and scholarship, on the one hand, and the continued advancement of digital and new media learning and scholarship, on the other hand” (Jay, 51). This paper discusses examples of engaged humanities and the institutional obstacles they face, concluding with a prediction on how new media is changing “the public” and thus shaping opportunities for scholarship and engagement.
- This document delineates eight characteristics of quality and significant community-engaged scholarship: clear academic and community change goals, adequate preparation in content area and grounding in the community, appropriate academic and community methods, significant impact on disciplinary knowledge and the community, effective presentation and dissemination to academic and community audiences, reflective technique, contribution to the national engagement movement, and consistently ethical behavior.
- Participatory action research with young people (yPAR) involves youth and adults in a collaborative process of research, reflection, analysis and action. An important part of the research cycle is enabling youth participants to identify a problem definition. This article draws upon a yPAR project to demonstrate how the Five Whys method for reflecting on lived experience facilitated the development of problem definitions in line with second order change. The Five Whys method, when used within a participatory framework, offers both a context and a structure for young people to critically examine social problems and to seek out root causes.
- Community engaged research is most challenging for global public health scientific ventures, particularly those involving new and controversial strategies and those in which risks and/or rewards for communities may be poorly understood. In this context, according to these authors, “…too few researchers authentically grapple with questions about what the precise nature of a given research community is, what constitutes fair and meaningful authorization by a community, whether dissenting voices should be afforded a fair opportunity for expression, or whether some control of important aspects of a research project can truly be ceded to the community without compromising the quality or integrity of the research.” (Lavery et al, 282) In response these authors describe a framework that provides a starting point for broader discussions of community engaged scholarship ethics in global health research, particularly as it relates to the development, evaluation and application of new technologies.
http://arj.sagepub.com/content/10/2/133
- This article offers an explanation for how academic integrity can be achieved in action research (AR). The academic integrity of AR depends on both 1) relevance (the ability to solve pertinent problems) and 2) rigor (the ability to rigorously scrutinize the experiences from the field engagement in order to communicate research-based findings). Thus, the essence of building academic integrity into AR is the researcher’s ability to create a necessary distance between the involvement in a change process and the reflexive process that aims at explaining the phenomenon. Action researchers can develop this ability through appropriate training, which the author names “Bildung”. This “Bildung” training process involves mastering relevant scientific knowledge, strategic and political skills, and the ability to run participative processes, reflect on ethical challenges in the research process, and write up AR in such a way that it contributes to the social science discourse. The author then describes five concrete factors that build integrity into the practice of AR: research partnering, researcher’s awareness of own biases, standardized methods, alternative explanations, and trustworthiness.
- This PowerPoint presentation outlines ethical concepts and considerations for conducting community-engaged research. The author first introduces the topic by providing characteristics of community-engaged research, the definition of a “community”, and how communities are typically represented. The PowerPoint is then presented in four sections: ethical principles of research, protecting individuals and considering community-level concerns, ethical principles and the partnership process, and ethical issues of power and control.
- In a CBPR project, overdependence on a key informants’ perspectives misrepresents the perspective of community members themselves. This paper compares the perspectives of key informants and community members on health related issues to better understand how CBPR can accurately identify health priorities of a community. Findings of the comparison are presented, as well as recommendations for researchers on how to work effectively with both key informants and community members.
http://arj.sagepub.com/content/11/2/113
- In this article, the authors reflect on the unique role and purpose of key informants in community-engaged research. Taking a critical social science perspective, they consider the value and challenges involved in selecting and relying on key informants to represent the community and its perspectives. They offer insight into how community-engaged researchers can ensure that the key-informants in their own work will represent insider community perspectives and help identify and support community priorities.
- An important mechanism for bridging the discovery-delivery gap is using university-community partnerships to prepare community-based organizations to implement evidence-based practices (EBPs). The authors present their experience as an example of using a university-community partnership to help translate EBPs in a small community setting, to serve as a resource for others wishing to conduct such a project. They review the steps of systematic planning and client needs assessment to decide on an EBP, and highlight each research partner’s role and activities in facilitating the successful translation of an EBP. They present lessons learned and recommendations.
- This resource on the theory and application of community-based participatory research focuses on health, but the application is universal. The book contains information on a wide variety of topics including planning and conducting research, working with communities, promoting social change, and core research methods. An appendix of tools, guides, checklists, sample protocols, and much more is included
- How can researchers create the conditions in which expertise is truly mutually constructed in a community-based research? In this article, the authors assess the definitions of community health, focus groups and dissemination used in community-based research to introduce an application of dialogical action that differs from traditional focus group methodology. This application aims to create an evolving and dynamic dialogue between university and community stakeholders. Six principles of dialogical action are presented and analyzed in a case study involving a Spanish-speaking urban community.
- The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the significance of entry in community-based research projects and to present a framework for entry that is influenced by principles of participatory action research (PAR): empowerment, supportive relationships, social justice, ongoing reciprocal education, and respect for diversity. This study examines the four entry stages of a mental health CBPR project in Ontario Canada, and analyzes the ways these principles were successfully applied and also how they were difficult to implement. Considering the entry process as critical in setting the tone for the project/partnership, the paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of combining PAR principles and engagement strategies in the initial stages of entry in order to develop reciprocal and honest relationships between the researchers and the community members.
http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/4/435.full
- This article presents the International Participatory Research Framework (IPRF), a set of triangulated procedures that researchers can use to conduct participatory research in myriad international settings. The IPRF comprises four recursive steps: (i) contextualizing the host country; (ii) identifying collaborators in the host country; (iii) seeking advice and endorsement from gatekeepers and (iv) matching partners’ expertise, needs and interests. The IPRF also includes the following sets of recursive participatory actions: (A1) becoming familiar with local languages and culture; (A2) sharing power, ideas, influence and resources; (A3) gathering oral and written information about partners; (A4) establishing realistic expectations and (A5) resolving personal and professional differences. The authors show how they used the IPRF recursively to build an effective partnership to study the roles of community health workers in Brazil.
- This 200-page publication is the update of the 1997 report by the CDC entitled Principles of Community Engagement. Although the health challenges faced in 1997 are not very different from today’s issues, the “scope, scale, and urgency of these problems have all sharply increased” (xv). Furthermore, the knowledge supporting community engagement has grown substantially since 1997, as more agencies and organizations are encouraging community engagement and community-engaged research. This second edition contains the following chapters:
1. Community Engagement: Definitions and Organizing Concepts from the Literature 2. Principles of Community Engagement 3. Successful Examples in the Field 4. Managing Organizational Support for Community Engagement 5. Challenges in Improving Community Engagement in Research 6. The Value of Social Networking in Community Engagement 7. Program Evaluation and Evaluating Community Engagement 8. Summary. This publication provides practical guidance for engagement activities and is aimed to advise public health professionals, health care providers, researchers, and community-based leaders and organizations.
- By engaging community members in all aspects of research, CBPR has the advantage of potentially gaining higher acceptance of and better cooperation in the research process compared to traditional research. This study compares data from a CBPR project to data collected using a traditional research approach, finding that “data collected using CBPR techniques may lead to higher cooperation and lower refusal rates than data collected by professional interviewers” but also that “CBPR interviewers over represent certain population groups whereas the survey data produced by professional interviewers may underrepresent key population groups” (Rucinksi et al, 2011, p. 704).
- In this article, the authors draw on Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action to develop the concept of virtual participant. The authors argue that this virtual participant concept can enhance understanding of the complex role of the action researcher. The article explores issues faced by action researchers in three project phases—initial, implementation, and conclusion. It then explains how the concept of virtual participant can assist the action researcher in understanding their role at each of these phases.
- Central to scholarship in outreach is the management of several critical tensions that emerge during planning, implementing, and evaluating endeavors. How can one produce outcomes valued by the academy and community? Analysis uses Michigan State University’s Points of Distinction framework including significance, attention to context, scholarship, and impact.
- CBPR methods can facilitate a research process that effectively engages local expertise, is informed by existing public health knowledge, and builds support from various sectors to implement solutions. This article examines a CBPR approach employed by the Healthy Environments Partnership Community Approaches to Cardiovascular Health (HEP-CATCH) to identify and develop intervention strategies. The authors provide background to cardiovascular disease in Detroit, Michigan, and then discuss in depth the three phases of the project: the community assessment, the community action planning, and the implementation of the multilevel intervention to address inequalities in cardiovascular disease. The article concludes with a discussion on how to engage communities in developing strategies to eliminate health inequity.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301157
- This article is a call for exploring, valuing and using Indigenous knowledge and methods on an equal footing with Western knowledge and methods, and for integrating Indigenous and Western methods when appropriate. The authors present a case study of an intervention research project to exemplify a clash between Western research methodologies and Indigenous methodologies, and how they attempted reconciliation. They provide implications for future research based on lessons learned from their Native American community partners, who voiced concern over methods of Western deductive qualitative analysis.
- How can family scholars use action-oriented research to work with community partners and develop useful knowledge about their practices and programs? This article aims to answer this question by providing practical strategies such as how to: develop collaborative relationships; determine sound research questions; follow guidelines to select and design research projects; and collect and disseminate data.
- While exploring the current challenges facing academic institu¬tions and the needs of their scholars to make their work relevant to the lives of university constituents, the author advocates a reactive and radical approach to engaged scholarship by out¬lining an 8-step process that considers the importance of trans¬formation, immediacy, and relevance in academic research in the field of human service. (Smith, 2011, p. 87).
- The term “engagement” in action research often refers to the participation and involvement of the research participants. In this article the authors take another angle, and explore the concept of engagement in relation to the main action researcher. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, the authors illustrate that the involvement and “closeness” of the action researcher, although necessary, can also have a darker side as people have the tendency to get trapped in their own beliefs and prejudices. They provide suggestions for how action researchers can realize productive engagement by using concepts such as mindfulness and mindsight.
- This literature review focuses on ways that professional service providers (those with specialized skills, training, and knowledge) have engaged in CBPR, experienced benefits from their engagement, contributed to health promotion research, and faced challenges in collaboration. The authors discuss the implication of these topics on policy and practice.
- This book presents a model of community-based research (CBR) that engages community members with students and faculty in the course of their academic work. Noting that CBR is collaborative and change-oriented and finds its research questions in the needs of communities, it presents a dynamic research model that combines classroom learning with social action in ways that can ultimately empower community groups to address their own agendas and shape their own futures.
- Although literature on community engagement is growing, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of community engagement (CE) in biomedical research. For 20 years, the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) in northern Ghana has developed an approach to community engagement that is integrated with local decision making practices and authority structures. This paper describes a qualitative study aimed to understand the CE practices between Kassena-Nankana district and the NHRC.
- This editorial explores how the development of CBPR as a worldview differs fundamentally from the use of CBPR as an instrumental strategy in translational research. The author analyzes a Katz et al paper (2011), included in the Exemplars Section of this Toolkit, which describes “an ambitious effort to blend the science of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with the processes of community-based participatory research (CBPR) in translational research. RCTs provide the science, while CBPR provides the processes of tailoring and implementation” (Trickett, 1353). He argues that this use of CBPR as an instrumental strategy differs fundamentally from accepted principles of CBPR that emphasize community involvement in decision-making throughout an intervention process. In Katz et al, “local influence appears [only] in translating findings to local context” (Trickett, 1353). Trickett advocates further conversation focused on deepening collaboration and expanding translational research in communities beyond processes of product development and dissemination.
- This report describes how members of the Yup’ik, Inupiat, Eveny, Inuit, and Sámi communities came together to develop and negotiate a research agenda to study indigenous youth in five international circumpolar communities. The planning workshop involving youth, adult community members, and academics is examined as a participatory methodology for international communities conducting research with shared interests. This paper is therefore useful to faculty and communities engaging in international participatory research projects or partnerships.
- Although the development of CBPR has been accompanied by growth in empirical studies on the operations and impacts of CBPR programs, there are few studies that evaluate the effectiveness of CBPR programs. Weaving an Islander Network for Cancer Awareness Research and Training (WINCART) initiative is based in Southern California. The goal of WINCART is to decrease cancer disparities among Pacific Islander communities by connecting community-based organizations (CBOs) and academic institutions that work in cancer education, research, and training. Can community-based outreach activities increase links between CBOs and academic researchers? This paper describes a 2-year study that employed social network analysis to assess the effectiveness of WINCART by measuring degrees of communication, collaboration, client referral, and formal agreements among organizations. 147 people from 11 CBOs and 5 universities were interviewed. Results revealed that “CBOs increased their connectedness with one another (b= 0.44; P < .05) and to the universities (b = 0.46; P<.05), but that university researchers did not increase their connectedness to each other or to CBOs” (Valente, 1319). This research not only demonstrates how a community-based program can improve communication between CBO’s, but that social network analysis is a credible evaluation method for CBPR programs.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10464-012-9498-6
- In academia, professional presentations and articles are the major ways that research is disseminated. There is little scholarly literature focused on how to disseminate research findings to the communities that participate CBPR. In order to fill this gap, this article presents a novel approach to the dissemination of research findings to communities through digital animation. The article then explains the foundational thinking and specific steps that were taken to select this specific dissemination product development and distribution strategy.
http://tcn.sagepub.com/content/23/3/255
- This articles shares culturally competent research strategies and lessons learned from a study with older adult diabetic Chinese Americans. The study used the CBPR approach and the vulnerable population conceptual model (VPCM) to develop these culturally competent research strategies.
- From the Carnegie Foundation classification system for university commitment to community engagement, to the establishment of professional networks focusing on engagement, progress has been made in recognizing the value of engaged scholarship. However, there has been an uneven adoption of engaged scholarship work by research universities in comparison to non-research institutions. This study uses boundary-spanning theory to determine ways that research universities build bridges with community partners, and therefore increase institutional capacity for engagement. The research questions guiding this study include: (a) How are boundary-spanning roles understood and defined across research institutions in the context of university-community engagement?(b) Who are the primary university-community boundary-spanning agents at research institutions, and what are their roles? and (c) To what extent do these boundary- spanning practices facilitate or inhibit university-community engagement? This paper provides a literature review of relevant works and cites the work of Friedman and Podolny (1992) to explain the conceptual components of boundary spanning and the methods used. By understanding the roles of boundary spanners and their activities, research institutions will be able to improve their methods of engagement with communities.
- Partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions as a strategy for social change are gaining recognition and momentum. Despite being formed with the best of intentions, however, authentic partnerships are very difficult to achieve. While academic partners have extensively documented their experiences and lessons learned, the voices of community partners are largely missing. If true partnerships are to be achieved, community partners must harness their own experiences, lessons learned, and collective wisdom into a national, organized effort. With guidance from a planning committee of community leaders, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health convened a Community Partner Summit in 2006. A diverse group of 23 community leaders, each experience in community higher education partnerships, engaged in a purposeful national dialogue that emphasized lessons learned and generated recommendations and action steps that participants are taking individually and collectively. (Description adapted from Executive Summary, cited above.)
- Good relationships between research institutions and communities are an essential, but often neglected, part of the infrastructure of translational science. In this article, the authors report the results of a workshop they convened to learn how such relationships are best created and sustained. They highlight common barriers and challenges that hinder relationships, and provide recommendations that research institutions and teams can use to expand and strengthen their relationships with community members.
