| Community-Based Participatory Research: Lessons Learned from the Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Barbara A. Israel,1 Edith A. Parker,1 Zachary Rowe,2 Alicia
Salvatore,3 Meredith Minkler,3 Jesús López,4 Arlene
Butz,5 Adrian Mosley,6 Lucretia Coates,7 George
Lambert,8 Paul A. Potito,9 Barbara Brenner,10 Maribel
Rivera,10,11 Harry Romero,11 Beti Thompson,12 Gloria
Coronado,12 and Sandy Halstead13
1University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
USA; 2Friends of Parkside, Detroit, Michigan, USA; 3University
of California at Berkeley, School of Public Health, Berkeley, California, USA; 4California
Rural Legal Assistance, Salinas, California, USA; 5Department of
General Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore,
Maryland, USA; 6Community Advisory Board member, Office of Community
Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA; 7Principal, Dr. Bernard Harris
Sr. Elementary School, President of Community Advisory Board, Baltimore, Maryland,
USA; 8Center for Childhood Neurotoxicology and Exposure Assessment,
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; 9Executive Director, New
Jersey Center for Outreach and Services for the Autism Community (COSAC), Ewing,
New Jersey, USA; 10Mount Sinai Center for Children’s Environmental
Health and Disease Prevention Research, Department of Community and Preventive
Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA; 11Boriken
Neighborhood Health Center, New York, New York, USA; 12Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA; 13U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency Region 10, Prosser, Washington, USA Abstract
Over the past several decades there has been growing evidence of the increase in incidence rates, morbidity, and mortality for a number of health problems experienced by children. The causation and aggravation of these problems are complex and multifactorial. The burden of these health problems and environmental exposures is borne disproportionately by children from low-income communities and communities of color. Researchers and funding institutions have called for increased attention to the complex issues that affect the health of children living in marginalized communities--and communities more broadly--and have suggested greater community involvement in processes that shape research and intervention approaches, for example, through community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships among academic, health services, public health, and community-based organizations. Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research (Children’s Centers) funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were required to include a CBPR project. The purpose of this article is to provide a definition and set of CBPR principles, to describe the rationale for and major benefits of using this approach, to draw on the experiences of six of the Children’s Centers in using CBPR, and to provide lessons learned and recommendations for how to successfully establish and maintain CBPR partnerships aimed at enhancing our understanding and addressing the multiple determinants of children’s health. Key words: children’s health, collaborative research, community-based participatory research, partnership. Environ Health Perspect 113:1463-1471 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.7675 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 24 June 2005]
This article is part of the mini-monograph “Lessons Learned from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research for the National Children’s Study.”
Address correspondence to B.A. Israel, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029 USA. Telephone: (734) 764-9494. Fax: (734) 763-7379. E-mail: samanj@umich.edu We thank our many colleagues and partners involved in the efforts described here who made these community-based participatory research partnerships possible. We thank S. Andersen for her assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. We acknowledge with appreciation the support provided by the National Children’s Study for the development of this article. Funding also comes partially from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (grants ES09589, ES011256, ES009601, ES009606, ES009584, ES009605) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (grants R826710, R829391, R826886, R826724, R827039, R826709) . The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 12 October 2004 ; accepted 13 June 2005. The full version of this article is available for free in HTML or PDF formats. |
