Who is the teacher? Who is the student? Integration of Community Based Participation Research Models (CBPM) into Nursing Curricula

Community based participation models (CBPM) appear to hold much promise to assist low-income individuals and communities to become empowered to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors. CBPM calls for a collaborative approach between the researcher and the community, with the aim of combining knowledge and action to improve community health and eliminate health disparities. There are ample opportunities for integration of CBPM into both undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula. This presentation focuses on the author's experiences using CBPM: 1) as the focus of an undergraduate Honors project; 2) in a traditional undergraduate Health Assessment course; 3) in a faculty research project using both undergraduate nursing students and community members as research assistants and 4) as a primary care clinical learning experience for advanced practice nursing students. Commonly encountered issues of power sharing and bi-directional teaching and learning are discussed. Additional potential opportunities for the use of CBPM in both didactic and clinical courses are presented. Integration of CBPM into the nursing curriculum offers some distinct advantages for community members, community-based organizations and health agencies as well as students and faculty.