Fostering CBPR through co-learning environments

BACKGROUND: Assessment of Local Environmental Risk Training to Reduce Health Disparities (ALERT) is a training and education project designed to foster community-academic partnerships to address disproportionate exposure to air pollution among communities of color, low-income neighborhoods, and immigrant populations in Los Angeles County. The ALERT project trains community members and groups to understand and use scientific data on air quality in their neighborhoods, while also enhancing the ability of academics and researchers to work with communities through community-based participatory research (CBPR) trainings. The ALERT project builds capacity through a 4-day train-the-trainer (TTT) course and subsequent workshops and events that include both community representatives and researchers. METHODS: Evaluation methods included a 6-month quantitative interview among community members, and 1-year qualitative interview among researchers. RESULTS: Participants in the TTT course included 54 community members and 13 researchers. At 6 months, community participants reported significant increases in knowledge of environmental health and air pollution data, increased trust towards researchers who do research in the community, and significant decreases in perceived barriers towards engaging in research partnerships, when compared to pretest scores. At one year, researcher interview themes included: ALERT helped to improve interactions with the community and having a liaison between the community and the university may help increase CBPR involvement. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from the ALERT project demonstrate that mutual engagement of researchers and community members in a co-learning environment can alter perceptions of trust, motivate relationships, and remove barriers to engaging in CBPR.