Low and high-tech ways to disseminate research findings to indigenous and minority communities

One tenet of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is to disseminate results to communities in ways that are understandable, respectful and useful `Imi Hale—Native Hawaiian Cancer Network is a community-based, community-placed research program to reduce cancer health disparities by developing Hawaiian researchers and facilitating CBPR to address community-identified problems. In line with CBPR, community involvement in all phases of the research is important. `Imi Hale assures community engagement in dissemination of findings in several ways. First, research must be vetted by a community IRB established by `Imi Hale in 2000. IRB members in rural areas and on other islands can be linked by VTC and phone. In this way, community knows about upcoming research and can impact its design during the review process. Second, researchers working in and with Hawaiian communities are required by `Imi Hale and by the community IRB to report research findings back to the community before going public or writing manuscripts. Findings may be disseminated through presentations, posters, newsletters, and/or email. Mechanisms for sharing research findings with community must be reflected in the research design and budget. Third, `Imi Hale hosts an annual Report to the Community, attended by 80+ community partners, where researchers report their findings through poster or oral presentations. Additionally, `Imi Hale offers training and mentoring to junior researchers to assure that findings also are presented at scientific conferences and submitted to refereed journals. To assure venues for Pacific Islander-related research manuscripts, `Imi Hale has guest edited three issues of peer reviewed journals and followed internal protocol to engage community members as co-authors, reviewers, and editors as appropriate. Other community-based researchers may expand their reach into indigenous and minority communities by instituting some of these low and high-tech dissemination practices.