Using a community capacity tool to measure capacity building in two low-income neighborhoods in los angles as part of a community based participatory research project

Background: Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) offers a promising method to understand and address diabetes and obesity in communities. CBPR can result in building community capacity, including individual and community leadership, skills, participation, and reflection. Evaluating community capacity can be used to measure the effectiveness of a CBPR project. Methods: This retrospective analysis assesses capacity built during a CBPR study of a diabetes and obesity in East and South Los Angeles. A validated survey of community capacity was administered to four people involved in the project. Results: There was consensus about the strengths of the project, which included: wide participation across a variety of key community stakeholders, education of community members on the socio-ecological model and integration of their ideas into future interventions, pride of community members in their participation in the project, and the leveraging of funding as a result of the project to provide nutrition education and farmer's markets, which are on-going. Areas that could have been strengthened include generating more chances for community members to learn leadership skills and practice them, and more involvement with the research components of the study. Conclusions: CBPR is an empowering research methodology which can build community capacity and have long-term impacts on individuals and communities. Utilizing a tool to administer to community partners to measure community capacity built as a result of a CBPR project can be useful to strengthen and refine strategies during the project and useful to investigators and communities interested in developing future CBPR research efforts.