Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasingly recognized by NIH, researchers and community groups as critical to understanding and addressing racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and environmental health disparities. As a result, more community groups are being approached by researchers who want to conduct research in the communities they serve or have access to, and more community groups are initiating their own research studies. A growing number of community groups have developed processes for determining whether to participate in or support a study that takes place in their community. Our prior study identified and described 109 of these operating across the United States and 30 in development. We have engaged five of the community groups that participated in our prior study as partners in conducting in-depth case studies of their research review processes. In doing so, we seek to understand the research ethics and integrity issues that arise in their research reviews, and their role in ensuring the ethics and integrity of the research conducted in their communities. By looking across the case studies, we will identify promising practices that community groups, researchers, and research institutions can put in place to ensure the ethics and integrity of CBPR.
Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasingly recognized by NIH, researchers and community groups as critical to achieving health equity across the diverse communities that comprise the United States. Our study seeks to help understand and ensure the ethics and integrity of CBPR, in order to ensure that such research in the future can reach its full potential to improve public health.
