| Evolving Partnerships in Community Shobha Srinivasan and Gwen W. Collman Division of Extramural Research and Training, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA Abstract
In recent years there have been a significant number of publications on the benefits and challenges of community-based participatory research (CBPR) . In this introduction we give an overview of three projects presented in this mini-monograph and highlight their commonalities and differences in developing community-university partnerships. While the studies presented here were not required to use CBPR strategies in their work, they did engage community members in a participatory manner. In this mini-monograph we examine how these multifaceted research questions are addressed while simultaneously negotiating complex relationships among researchers and communities as they strive for a more equitable partnership--not only in the distribution of resources but also in power/authority, the process of research, and its outcome. The three papers in this mini-monograph offer insights into various ways of forming, working, and sustaining community-university partnerships in conducting CBPR. They illustrate both the potential benefits and some of the challenges involved with establishing partnerships between community groups and researchers committed to the mutual goal of promoting environmental health. They suggest the importance of nonprescriptive frameworks for conducting community-based participatory research that focuses on more equitable power relationships to address health disparities to help alleviate environmental health problems. Key words: community-based participatory research, community-university partnership, environmental exposures, health disparities, methodology. Environ Health Perspect 113:1814-1816 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.7911 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 18 July 2005]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "Community-Based Participatory Research." Address correspondence to G.W. Collman, Division of Extramural Research and Training, NIEHS, NIH, DHHS, P.O. Box 12233, MD EC-21, 111 T.W. Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA. Telephone: (919) 541-4980. Fax: (919) 316-4606. E-mail: collman@niehs.nih.gov The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 28 December 2004 ; accepted 18 July 2005.
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