Does the quality of collaboration in a CBPR trial contribute to community benefit? The Padres Informados/Jovenes Preparados experience

There is a growing interest in addressing complex issues through participatory research. Although quality community-university collaboration contributes to impactful research, little is known about how the community benefits from the collaborative process. Padres Informados/Jóvenes Preparados (Padres) is a CBPR, NIH funded, longitudinal prevention research intervention.  Collaboration is assessed annually among seven community and university partners including four social service agencies, two clinics, and one public school.

Evaluation measures are part of a larger collaborative survey. Two domains are highlighted in this presentation, 1) the quality of the collaboration including: Trust (6 items) and Capacity (6 items).  2) The collaboration transfer (7 items) that assessed community-community partnerships. Descriptive statistics, correlation and one-mode Social Network Analysis (SNA) was used to assess the depth (strength of ties) and density of the collaboration over time.

Results indicated an increase in both domains over two years. For example, in five out of six Trust items, responses on average were ‘moderate’ (18%) to ‘great extent’ (82%) in the second year. Statistically significant positive correlation of Trust, Capacity and Collaboration transfer were noted. The single-mode SNA indicates the depth and density among collaborators is improving over time.

Outcomes suggest the quality of collaboration increased over time and contributed to strengthened community partnerships beyond the current project. The effect of quality collaboration in CBPR projects extends beyond research outcomes, to include increased capacity for collaboration among community partners. A closer look at two collaborating organization illustrates the collaboration transfer, and how their work have been impacted when serving their communities.