Challenges of conducting community-based participatory research in Boston's neighborhoods to reduce disparities in asthma.

Full Abstract

Boston is one of the preeminent health care and research centers in the world, but for much of its urban core, these resources are largely out of reach. Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) provides a model with the potential to bridge the gaps between its research prominence and the health of its residents. We report here two case studies of major research projects that were partnerships between universities in Boston and community based organizations and city agencies. The Healthy Public Housing Initiative (HPHI) and the Asthma Center on Community Environment and Social Stress (ACCESS) are projects that provide numerous lessons about the potential and challenges of conducting CBPR. Ensuring that the projects were true partnerships emerged as key issues in both, especially with respect to funding mechanisms and distribution of resources, although the nature of the challenges differed substantially in the two projects. We note that both academic and community partners may harbor stereotypes about the other and that generalizations about broad populations, academics or community members, may not apply well to everyone. Aligning objectives and expectations emerged as another key lesson. In HPHI, tension between service delivery and research was both a source of conflict and a source of creative development that led to divergent but interesting outcomes. In ACCESS, the tensions revolved more around community capacity building while attempting to build and maintain a large cohort for epidemiological investigations. We conclude that open and frank discussion and a transparent process upfront about project direction, finances, expectations, and other dimensions are necessary but not sufficient to address the inherent challenges in CBPR, and that even so, there are likely to be differences in perspective in such partnerships that require honest negotiation throughout the process of the project.

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Author information

Author/s: Freeman, Elmer R (ER); Brugge, Doug (D); Bennett-Bradley, Willie Mae (WM); Levy, Jonathan I (JI); Carrasco, Edna Rivera (ER);

Affiliation: Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, Inc., Boston, MA, USA. e.freeman(-atsign-)neu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine (J Urban Health), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Nov; vol 83 (issue 6) : pp 1013-21

Dates: Created 2006/12/22; Completed 2007/02/28;

PMID: 17103339, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Asthma - ethnology; prevention & control; therapy
Boston - epidemiology
Community-Institutional Relations
Consumer Participation - methods
Continental Population Groups
Ethnic Groups

Health Services Accessibility - organization & administration
Health Services Research - organization & administration
Humans
Poverty
Prejudice
Urban Health Services - organization & administration

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