Lessons learned from forming relationships and starting a large-scale, rural, multi-community intervention

The Flying Sparks Project is a large-scale, multi-community intervention based on the community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Administered through the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), its primary aim is to explore the determinants of community adoption, ownership, and enhancement of Community Health Advisor (CHA) intervention strategies in Alabama's rural Black Belt region. The project, now in year 4 of 5, depends heavily on a community participation board (CPB). The CPB has played a valuable role in helping both UAB and the Flying Sparks Project establish connections in communities that were relatively isolated, poor, and unfamiliar with research, and where a poverty of trust existed in some settings. With the help and guidance of the CPB, Flying Sparks was able to recruit and train individuals who would implement CHA training activities from 20 communities within 7 counties in the region, identify and train local residents as interviewers and then collect the first of two waves of data regarding several dimensions and measures of social capital and general health and well-being from nearly 1,400 residents from these communities, and thus substantially expand UAB's service and research presence in the region. Minkler's 2005 “CBPR Challenges” include 'Community-driven issue selection; Insider/Outsider tensions; Constraints on community involvement; and Dilemmas in the sharing/release of findings. Using this as a framework, we will discuss our relationship with the CPB and present some of the lessons we have learned in working with it on a large-scale, multi-site project in a rural setting.