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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Gordon M. Belcourt, MPH¹, Cheryl Belcourt, BA¹, Kathryn M. Langwell, MA², and Rob Schurrer, PhD². (1) Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, 222 North 32nd Street, Suite 401, Billings, MT 57754, 406-252-2550, belcourt@wtp.net, (2) Black Hills States University, 1246 St. Joe St., Spearfish, SD 57754

Involvement of communities in research requires more than obtaining approval or “buy in” from community leaders and/or a few individuals. Community members must be involved in all phases of the research process, from design through implementation and evaluation. In addition, the involved community leaders and participants in the program must perceive the program as providing both direct (e.g. improved health outcomes) and indirect benefits (e.g. training and skills-building for community members). Most community-based participatory research is initiated by academic researchers who approach communities to become involved. The Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council embarked on a program for Tribally-directed participatory research and established collaborations with university researchers to conduct community-based participatory research on priority topics identified by Tribes. Since that time, several projects have been initiated and conducted with Tribes as full partners in the research. This has required building capacity within the Tribes to participate in the range of research activities, providing guidance and support for both Tribes and researchers to build understanding and incorporate culture and tradition into research processes, and development of long-term relationships over several years. The 42-month Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant for Building Community Supports for Indian People with Diabetes is described as an exemplary participatory research project. This paper describes the model of participatory research that was the initial starting point for the project, processes for building capacity within Tribes, the learning process for researchers, the benefits to participating Tribes, and lessons learned for developing on-going Tribal participatory research programs.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• List the seven key elements of successful Tribal participatory research.
• Describe the benefits to Tribes of defining priorities for health research and collaborating with research partners.
• Apply the lessons learned from examples of Tribal participatory research and assess the feasibility of replication.
• Develop a plan for establishing a Tribally-directed participatory research program.

Keywords: Community-Based Health Promotion, Participatory Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No