Overview and Pre-course assessment

The purpose of this Institute is to help participants who are familiar with and possibly have some experience in CBPR sharpen their data collection and analysis skills. A systematic approach to inquiry which equitably involves community and other partners throughout the research process and views action as an integral part of the endeavor, CBPR recently was identified by the IOM as one of eight new areas in which all public health schools should be providing training. The CDC, the NIH and a number of large and small foundations similarly have begun calling for proposals that incorporate a CBPR approach. These developments reflect in part growing concern that traditional outside expert-driven approaches often have proven poorly suited to researching and developing interventions aimed at many of today's most intractable health and social issues, e.g., homelessness, teen pregnancy, violence, environmental pollution.