LI Course
CE Hours: 3 contact hours

Partnership: Community-based Public Health Caucus

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview: This Institute's purpose 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 was identified by the IOM as one of eight new areas in which all public health schools should be providing training. This reflects 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. In carrying out a CBPR approach to inquiry, steps related to data collection and analysis often provide the greatest challenges. At its core, CBPR aims to ensure that all aspects of an investigation are conducted in partnership with communities, are systematic, participatory, and oriented toward meaningful social and community change. In public health, CBPR focuses on social, structural and physical environmental inequities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. CBPR has proven a promising approach for addressing such problems. Following a very brief review of community-based participatory research, this institute will lead participants through the steps of collecting and analyzing several types of data within the context of a partnership. Questions such as: How do we get from data to findings? How do we organize different types of data? How do we move from findings to policy? will be addressed. The Institute will use case studies, each of which employs one of three different data collection approaches, i.e., survey, mapping, and focus group, to teach skills related to data analysis and policy change implementation. The values and processes that permeate and define CBPR will be featured throughout. Participants will: a) review key principles of the participatory research approach, b) learn about issues involved in selecting a particular data collection method, c) understand how to move from data to findings, and d) become knowledgeable about how work within the partnership to share data and findings in a community setting. Finally, d) they will learn how to identify the policy implications of findings. As a way of deepening their understanding of the CBPR values and methodology, participants will have an opportunity to work with cases that reflect real world situations.

Session Objectives: a. Define community-based participatory research and distinguish it from other forms of inquiry b. Identify three methods of data collection, i.e., focus group, mapping, and survey that can be used jointly by members of a partnership c. Identify at least three critical issues that arise when adopting and applying the principles of community-based participatory research for data analysis and collection d. Articulate roles and approaches for scholars and community members in community-based participatory data analysis and collection

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing