DEI LAB

Community-Based Participatory Research: Guiding the Path to Equity in Serious Illness Care

Ronit Elk, PhD FAAHPM, and Harriet Mather, MD MSc

What Is Community-Based Participatory Research?

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a social justice approach that intentionally and equitably engages community members in all aspects of the research process, including priority setting, capacity building, knowledge generation, program building, and dissemination of findings. Unlike other approaches where the study respondent role is to be a study participant according to a predetermined study protocol, in CBPR community members are equal participants in the entire research process. The goal of CBPR is to address an issue identified as problematic by the community; researchers/clinicians and community members participate equally in developing the study, with recommendations and solutions coming from the community in their role as experts in their culture, values, goals, and preferences. CBPR has been used widely in addressing public health problems and in developing cancer control strategies and has consistently been proven to reduce health disparities.