Abstract
Does social media have a place in community-based participatory research? Lessons learned from a mobile health project with urban American Indian/Alaska Native young women
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
Past and present research exploitation of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations has resulted in widespread mistrust within Native communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) focuses on building relationships between academic and community partners. It provides co-learning and mutual benefit to both entities across the research process, and is now commonly used in research with AIAN communities. However, CBPR assumes in-person engagement within the communities itself. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, such engagement has been challenging; creating partnership through virtual connection has been a necessity, but few tools or resources exist to inform an authentic connection.
Native WYSE (Women, Young, Strong, Empowered) CHOICES, an alcohol-exposed pregnancy prevention mobile health project, was designed prior to the pandemic to leverage social media and other technological resources to reach urban AIAN young women across the nation. In each stage of our project, we have integrated CBPR methodologies virtually to support meaningful connection with this population. As we continue our project, we have learned important lessons about virtual community participation in research, and how social media can be used to gain legitimacy, build connection, and be used as an effective tool within CBPR research. The presentation will explore and share our lessons learned regarding (1) using social media as a tenant to achieve the 9 principles of CBPR; (2) meaningfully integrating AIAN adolescents’ preferences into phone apps and social media, and (3) building connections with AIAN-serving organizations across the country to support and facilitate broad dialogue across the research process.