Improving partnerships: A community collaboration to improve self-management of hypertension among African-American veterans

Background: Deviating from traditional intervention research designs, our work targeting African-American Veterans with hypertension (HTN) utilized a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to create a DVD of success stories about managing HTN. For this intervention, it was imperative that community members became part of the process and researchers embraced their perspectives. We partnered with Veterans to select authentic stories about HTN self-management.

Method: To create an equitable partnership, we created a process that included rapport building, role sharing expectations, team meetings and feedback. Rapport was established with conversations about a shared commitment to the intervention goals. To illustrate partnership roles and equity of duties, expectations and intervention progress were frequently discussed. We used structured and unstructured templates for obtaining Veteran feedback on story message strength in the taped storytellers and to identify the most persuasive stories. Iterative feedback about DVD development was maintained through team meetings.

Conclusion: Through our collaborative process involving active listening and feedback, we created an equitable CBPR partnership. We established early that Veterans were not research participants, but equitable partners in decision-making, which contributed to active participation and fostered rapport. Stories the researchers viewed as important were not always the ones identified by the Veterans as engaging; we came to value and respect the Veteran viewpoint as equally valid as evidence-based research strategies. Key to building and maintaining trust was showing Veterans stages of DVD development that integrated their input. These steps contributed to a CBPR process that truly incorporated Veteran perspectives into intervention development.