Enhancing social justice in research: Building an effective CBPR collaboration between two Pacific Islander community partners and a university research team

Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), applied faithfully according to its postcolonial principles, is inherently conducive to social justice among its institutional and community partners by promoting egalitarian collaborations through all stages of a research project. During a one-year qualitative needs assessment study, we built an effective academic-community collaboration between a university research team and two Pacific Islander community based organizations (CBOs). Responding to a National Cancer Institute call for research exploring HIV/AIDS-related cancers, our CBOs worked closely with the academic team to examine HIV and HPV risk and prevention among young adults in Chamorro and Tongan communities in Southern California. The CBOs took the lead in several areas: determining that the most locally relevant and culturally appropriate point of entry to studying HIV/AIDS-related cancers was to first investigate HIV and its potential connections to HPV; convening a new community advisory board; recruiting study participants; and collecting data. Community and academic partners collaboratively chose the research design, and the academic team built CBO capacity by conducting trainings on HIV, HPV, sampling, data collection, analysis, and dissemination. To build trust, the decision making process incorporated island-style meeting protocols centered on eating together and “talk story”. Through our successful CBPR collaboration, we have ensured the production of a shared discourse on our research topic, not one dominated by either the academic or CBO side; and we have solidified a relationship for future projects. This is critical, as social justice in the wider community can begin in the microcosm of such equal partnerships.