Using a repeated measure, mixed method approach to measuring empowerment as an outcome of a CBPR project

Our Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project aimed to develop, implement and evaluate a family-centered childhood obesity prevention project among low income families. A Community Advisory Board (CAB), which was predominantly low income parents of Head Start children, was the key decision making body of the project. Parents, partner organization staff and community members were actively involved in decision making throughout the 2-year project, including the development, implementation and analysis of a community assessment and resulting multi-component intervention. In contrast to CBPR projects with empowerment operationalized as a process measure, empowerment was a key outcome in this study. Even as a process measure, empowerment is an important component of many CBPR projects. Yet the measurement of empowerment is still in its infancy. Empowerment encompasses multiple concepts depending on the definition used. We evaluated empowerment as an outcome of the participatory process using a repeated measures, qualitative and quantitative evaluation. In-depth interviews and surveys were administered at multiple time points to measure psychological and resource empowerment. We will present our partnership structure, describe our operationalized definition of empowerment, explain our measurement approach, and outline concepts we found to be essential components of empowerment. We will present specific components of psychological and resource empowerment and the most effective way we found to measure constructs, drawing on psychometric tests of the quantitative measures. The highlights and pitfalls along with recommendations for future research will also be presented to inform other CBPR researchers and community partners about the measurement of empowerment as a CBPR outcome.