Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is, “a partnership approach to research that equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers in all aspects of the research process. It enables all partners to contribute their expertise, with shared responsibility and ownership; it enhances the understanding of a given phenomenon; and, it integrates the knowledge gained with action to improve the health and well-being of community members, such as through interventions and policy change” (Israel, Schulz, Parker, and Becker, 1998).
The Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service supports CBPR through faculty mini-grants, student research prizes, and professional development programs like Faculty Learning Communities (FLC).
This collection of resources is the outcome of the 2022 FLC on CBPR in Health and the 2019 FLC on CBPR Basics.
Note that many of our top choices come from public health fields. We find these to be valuable resources for most academic disciplines, with guidance that is easily translated to other fields.
Associations, Institutes, and Toolkits
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is a professional association with a mission to promote health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions. They provide resources, facilitate conferences, webinars, and other professional development opportunities.
Sample Resources:
- Promoting Healthy Public Policy through CBPR: Ten Case Studies
10 case studies of diverse community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships around the United States that have in common a commitment to foster healthy public policy. - Resources for CBPR Grantwriting
A resource providing tips and strategies for all stages of the CBPR process including research design, funding, methodology, data collection, and research dissemination. - The Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative: Building Capacity for Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions. A project of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health.
Centre for Community Based Research
“The Centre for Community Based Research (CCBR) is committed to social justice and to building communities that are responsive and supportive, especially for people with limited access to power and opportunity. We conduct and promote research that is community-driven, participatory, and action-oriented and that combines research with education and community involvement. Our work builds on community strengths to create awareness, policies, and practices that advance equitable participation and inclusion of all community members.”
DC-CFAR: Center for AIDS Research Community Engaged Research Council
Many resources are available here, a Center that many GW public health faculty are involved with. Particularly noteworthy are two guides to CBPR that were developed collaboratively by the CFAR team and their community council.
Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
“The Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health is based at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University and publishes the peer-reviewed journal Women's Health Issues. Our mission is to identify and study aspects of healthcare and public health, including legal and policy issues, that affect women’s health at different life stages; to foster awareness of and facilitate dialogue around issues that affect women’s health; and to promote interdisciplinary research, coordination, and information dissemination.”
The Urban Institute (n.d.). Community-Engaged Methods Guidebook
Shared with us by Elsa Falkenburger, who is driving a significant participatory research movement at the Urban Institute. "The guidebook is based on Urban’s Data Walk guide and includes practical advice for partnership building, community advisory boards, participatory approaches to surveys, and youth engagement."
Goodman, L.A., Thomas, K.A., Serrata, J.V., Lippy, C., Nnawulezi, N., Ghanbarpour, S., Macy, R., Sullivan, C. & Bair-Merritt, M.A. (2017). Power through partnerships: A CBPR toolkit for domestic violence researchers. National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, Harrisburg, PA.
This toolkit is for researchers across disciplines and social locations who are working in academic, policy, community, or practice-based settings. In particular, the toolkit provides support to emerging researchers as they consider whether and how to take a CBPR approach and what it might mean in the context of their professional roles and settings.
John Snow Inc. (2012). Engaging Your Community: A Toolkit for Partnership, Collaboration, and Action
This document was developed for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of Adolescent Health (OAH).
Books and Articles
Hacker, K. (2017). Community-based participatory research. SAGE Publications Ltd.
This is the text used by the 2019 Nashman Center Faculty Learning Community on CBPR, which we found to be a useful overview.
Israel, B. A. (2012). Methods for community-based participatory research for health (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
This text provides comprehensive examinations of CBPR study designs, data collection and analysis methods, and innovative partnership structures and process methods. Many researchers use the “Nine Principles of CBPR” from this text to provide grounding to their project design and structure to their conversations with community partners.
Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (2008). Community-based participatory research for health from process to outcomes (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Coughlin, S. S., Smith, S. A., & Fernandez, M. E. (2017). Handbook of community-based participatory research. Oxford University Press.
Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action Journal
Progress in Community Health Partnerships (PCHP) is a national, peer-reviewed journal whose mission is to identify and publicize model programs that use community partnerships to improve public health, promote progress in the methods of research and education involving community health partnerships, and stimulate action that will improve the health of people and communities.
Glass, R. D., Morton, J. M., King, J. E., Krueger-Henney, P., Moses, M. S., Sabati, S., & Richardson, T. (2018). The Ethical Stakes of Collaborative Community-Based Social Science Research. Urban Education, 53(4), 503–531.
This multivocal essay engages complex ethical issues raised in collaborative community-based research (CCBR). It critiques the fraught history and limiting conditions of current ethics codes and review processes, and engages persistent troubling questions about the ethicality of research practices and universities themselves.
Horowitz, C. R., Robinson, M., & Seifer, S. (2009). Community-Based Participatory Research From the Margin to the Mainstream: Are Researchers Prepared? Circulation, 119(19), 2633–2642.
This article discusses methods to inform CBPR research design, implementation and dissemination, to challenge academic and community partners to invest in team building, share resources, and mutually exchange ideas and expertise.
Warren, M. R., Calderón, J., Kupscznk, L. A., Squires, G., & Su, C. (2018). Is Collaborative, Community-Engaged Scholarship More Rigorous Than Traditional Scholarship? On Advocacy, Bias, and Social Science Research. Urban Education, 0042085918763511.
The authors discuss the importance of relationship building and trust in addressing the tensions that can arise between the demands of knowledge production and action-oriented social change.
Wilson, E., Kenny, A., & Dickson-Swift, V. (2018). Ethical challenges of community based participatory research: Exploring researchers’ experience. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21(1), 7–24.
The aim of this research was to explore researchers’ experience of ethical challenges in CBPR at an international level. An innovative data collection method was designed utilizing a purpose-built blog. Balancing participant protection and autonomy, partnership tensions, and enduring impacts of the researcher role emerged as the main themes.
Teaching with CBPR
Blundo, R. (2004). Participatory research and service-learning: A natural match for the community and campus.
A resource focused on CBPR in service-learning courses. Discusses how service-learning can be accentuated and improved upon through community-based research projects.
