Resilience in American Indian community-based public health

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has become a popular approach in working with underserved and minority populations. The approach suggests that research processes and associated public health interventions will benefit from the combined skills and assets of the community and research institution. Yet, does this approach perpetuate a deficit model by asking the community, “What problems do you want to address?” The Center for American Indian Resilience (CAIR) is working with American Indian communities and American Indian researchers to ask, “What are our strategies for success?” American Indians have succeeded in the face of adversity, yet paths of collective resilience, the capabilities of communities to thrive in adverse circumstances, remain under-researched and under-utilized by public health scholars and practitioners. CAIR builds on longstanding partnerships among the Arizona American Indian communities, Diné College, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona to (1) document indicators of resilience, (2) enhance the applicability of resilience models in health promotion, and (3) bolster community-academic partnerships by incorporating resilience models into CBPR activities. CBPR augments current resilience research by incorporating grounded accounts of strategies to promote wellbeing through emic perspectives, making both findings and public health interventions more salient to American Indian communities.