Community-based participatory research: a vehicle to promote public engagement for environmental health in China

Participatory research in Northwest Atlanta's Proctor Creek Watershed: Using photovoice to explore environmental health risks at the water's edge

In this study we used a participatory research method, photovoice, to explore community perceptions about environmental health risks, community assets, and strengths in and around an urban, degraded watershed in Northwest Atlanta, Georgia. This watershed, formed by Proctor Creek, is a focal point for redevelopment and infrastructure investments for years to come. Using a community-based participatory research approach, 10 Proctor Creek residents (watershed researchers), and a university partner, engaged in data collection; participatory data analysis; internal discussions; translation of research findings into watershed restoration, community revitalization, remedial action, and policy solutions; and dissemination of results to fellow watershed residents, stakeholders, and decision makers. We present a conceptual model linking the watershed researchers' understanding of urban policies and practice in the Proctor Creek Watershed to environmental, neighborhood and housing conditions and their influence on health outcomes and quality of life. Engaging community members in defining their own community environmental health challenges and assets yielded the following primary themes: 1) threats to the natural environment, 2) built environment stressors that influence health, 3) blight and divestment of public resources, and 4) hope for the future. Residents' vision for the future of the watershed - a restored creek, revitalized neighborhoods, and restored people - is fueled by a strong connection to history, memory, and sense of place. We demonstrate the value of local knowledge in identifying previously unaddressed environmental health risks in the Proctor Creek Watershed as well as solutions to reduce or eliminate them.

Increasing Environmental Health Literacy through Contextual Learning in Communities at Risk

Environmental health literacy (EHL) has recently been defined as the continuum of environmental health knowledge and awareness, skills and self-efficacy, and community action. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of university scientists, partnering with local organizations, developed and facilitated EHL trainings with special focus on rainwater harvesting and water contamination, in four communities with known environmental health stressors in Arizona, USA. These participatory trainings incorporated participants' prior environmental health risk knowledge and personal experiences to co-create training content. Mixed methods evaluation was conducted via pre-post participant surveys in all four trainings (n = 53). Participants who did not demonstrate baseline environmental science knowledge pre-training demonstrated significant knowledge increase post-training, and participants who demonstrated low self-efficacy (SE) pre-training demonstrated a significant increase in SE post-training. Participants overall demonstrated a significant increase in specific environmental health skills described post-training. The interdisciplinary facilitator-scientist team also reported multiple benefits, including learning local knowledge that informed further research, and building trust relationships with community members for future collaboration. We propose contextual EHL education as a valuable strategy for increasing EHL in environmental health risk communities, and for building academia-community partnerships for environmental health research and action.

The development of a participatory assessment technique for infrastructure: Neighborhood-level monitoring towards sustainable infrastructure systems

Climate change and increasing natural disasters coupled with years of deferred maintenance have added pressure to infrastructure in urban areas. Thus, monitoring for failure of these systems is crucial to prevent future impacts to life and property. Participatory assessment technique for infrastructure provides a community-based approach to assess the capacity and physical condition of infrastructure. Furthermore, a participatory assessment technique for infrastructure can encourage grassroots activism that engages residents, researchers, and planners in the identification of sustainable development concerns and solutions. As climate change impacts disproportionately affect historically disenfranchised communities, assessment data can further inform planning, aiming to balance the distribution of public resources towards sustainability and justice. This paper explains the development of the participatory assessment technique for infrastructure that can provide empirical data about the condition of infrastructure at the neighborhood-level, using stormwater systems in a vulnerable neighborhood in Houston, Texas as a case study. This paper argues for the opportunity of participatory methods to address needs in infrastructure assessment and describes the ongoing project testing the best use of these methods.

An Analysis of the Structural Factors Affecting the Public Participation in Health Promotion

The present study focuses on analyzing national and international Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) studies published from 2000 to 2012 in order to identify and categorize the possible factors that affect social participation for improving the public health. Clearly, improving the public health necessitates a combination of the participation and responsibility by the social members and the attempts by public health policy-makers and planners. CBPR studies are selected as the corpus since they seek to encourage active and informed participation of the social members in fulfilling the health related goals. The present study is conducted through meta-synthesis within a qualitative framework. The results revealed a set of factors within the structural capacities which were employed by the CBPR researchers for achieving the health promotion goals. The structural capacities employed in the interventions could be considered on the cultural and social grounds. The cultural grounds were divided into scientific and religious attempts. For the scientific attempts, the results highlighted the participation of higher education institutes including universities and research centers as well as educational institutes such as schools and the relevant institutions. And regarding the religious attempts, the results indicated that the cooptation of religious centers played the greatest role in enhancing the public participation.

Is Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) Useful? A Systematic Review on Papers in a Decade

BACKGROUND

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been applied by health researchers and practitioners to address health disparities and community empowerment for health promotion. Despite the growing popularity of CBPR projects, there has been little effort to synthesize the literature to evaluate CBPR projects. The present review attempts to identify appropriate elements that may contribute to the successful or unsuccessful interventions.

METHODS

A systematic review was undertaken using evidence identified through searching electronic databases, web sites, and reference list checks. Predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were assessed by reviewers. Levels of evidence, accounting for methodologic quality, were assessed for 3 types of CBPR approaches, including interventional, observational, and qualitative research design as well as CBPR elements through separate abstraction forms. Each included study was appraised with 2 quality grades, one for the elements of CBPR and one for research design.

RESULTS

Of 14,222 identified articles, 403 included in the abstract review. Of these, 70 CBPR studies, that 56 intervention studies had different designs, and finally 8 studies met the inclusion criteria. The findings show that collaboration among community partners, researchers, and organizations led to community-level action to improve the health and wellbeing and to minimize health disparities. It enhanced the capacity of the community in terms of research and leadership skills. The result provided examples of effective CBPR that took place in a variety of communities. However, little has been written about the organizational capacities required to make these efforts successful.

CONCLUSION

Some evidences were found for potentially effective strategies to increase the participant's levels of CBPR activities. Interventions that included community involvement have the potential to make important differences to levels of activities and should be promoted.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to study children's health in China: experiences and reflections

BACKGROUND

Community-based participatory research principles have been successfully applied to public health research in U.S. settings. While there is a long history of collaboration between government and communities in China, to date, community-based participatory research has not been used in children's environmental health studies.

METHOD

This article describes how community-based participatory research principles were applied by an international research group to the China Jintan Child Cohort Study, a longitudinal study of malnutrition and lead exposure on cognitive and neurobehavioral development. Challenges emerged and lessons learned from implementing the study were discussed and recommendations were presented.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that the community-based participatory research model can be applied in conducting and promoting environmental health research in China and researchers should be prepared for special challenges and cultural constraints in the implementation of the research in regards to human subject regulations, information dissemination, and culture.

Evaluation of a partnership approach to translating research on breast cancer and the environment

BACKGROUND

The growing literature on community-based participatory research (CBPR) suggests that a participatory approach benefits science in important ways. However there have been few formal evaluations of a CBPR approach itself, and few standards developed to assist in such efforts.

OBJECTIVES

This evaluation used CBPR guidelines developed by Green and colleagues to evaluate the participatory approach of the Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) of the Bay Area Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center (BABCERC) in translating scientific findings from two key projects to the public.

METHOD

To assess key stakeholders' perceptions of alignment between the projects and the guidelines, four COTC members, four researchers, and four community members rated the projects on each of the 26 guidelines. These data were triangulated with transcripts from interviews with the same participants and a focus group with a subset of the participants.

RESULTS

The participatory approach by the COTC resulted in many important benefits including improved relationships among diverse stakeholders, knowledge generation, increased sensitivity and propriety of the research, and increased community support of research. However, several atypical features of this collaboration-for example, the basic and etiological nature of the science being undertaken, and the multiple communities (lay and activist/advocate) involved-resulted in different levels and qualities of participation among stakeholders.

CONCLUSIONS

Further research should focus on the adaptation of participatory research principles for different kinds of community partners and on the development and refinement of standards and tools to assist in evaluating the process and outcome of participatory research.