2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

327280
Building Community Based Participatory Research Capacity in an Urban HIV/AIDS Community


Monday, November 2, 2015 : 10:30 a.m. - 10:50 a.m.

Alvan Quamina, JD, PhD, MPH, Section Chief--Clinical Services, Epidemiology & Vital Statistics, City of Berkeley, Public Health Division, Berkeley, CA
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
From 2010 through 2013, the Alameda AIDS Research Coalition—a consortium of UCSF and other academic researchers and community partners in Oakland, California—developed strong, long-term relationships that bridged the gap between research and communities by 1) developing trainings and forums to build the capacity of research partners to engage in community-involved research, 2) leveraging existing electronic infrastructure to build support mechanisms for community-involved research, and 3) seeding the next generation of STI/HIV research.  The AARC has held consistent meetings since Fall of 2010, has over 50 members and considers health disparities among African Americans (in prevention and treatment) as a high priority.   Even now, almost two years after federal support for the coalition has ended, the AARC continues to meet, to host forums, and to work together on research projects and research proposals.

The experience of the AARC offers many lessons about the differences in motivation, perspective and need between academic researchers and community members interested and/or involved in research.  Understanding these differences is key to designing a collaborative structure that can meet the diverse needs of diverse partners.  Issues of communication, power, and trust were tackled head-on, ultimately with positive results.  The AARC also developed an approach to community education and to academic research support that helped to ensure the sustained engagement of both academic researchers and community members.  The experience of the AARC offers a useful case study from which others interested in CBPR can learn.

Learning Areas:

Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Identify useful and effective components of a CBPR capacity building program Differentiate between the likely motives, goals and objectives of academic researchers, and those of community-based researchers Identify challenges and barriers to successful CBPR partnership between academia and the (non-academic) community Identify best practices for maximizing engagement, trust and effective collaboration between academia and the (non-academic) community Design approaches to CBPR and to CBPR capacity building that maximize the likelihood of project success

Keyword(s): Community-Based Research (CBPR), HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have served for 3+ years as the community-based principal investigator (working together with an academia-based principal investigator) on a CBPR capacity building project funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which founded the Alameda AIDS Research Coalition –a consortium of health sciences investigators at UCSF (academic researchers), community-based organizations that serve the African American community (CBO researchers), and community members (community researchers) seeking to answer significant scientific STI/HIV research questions.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3138.0: Community voices: Community member perspectives on community-academic partnerships and CBPR (presenting author must be a community member)