THURS-022 - Building Community Capacity: A Review of Community Participation in Research Phases Across CBPR Projects

Brief Abstract Summary: Addressing social determinants of health requires bringing communities and organizations together to identify concerns and advocate for policy change. Results from HESPA II 2020 and HESPA III 2025 recognized the increasing importance of advocacy in practice and designated advocacy as its own distinct Area of Responsibility. CBPR is an established approach for promoting health equity and achieving upstream change. A key principle of CBPR is the facilitation of collaborative partnerships in all phases of research. Our selective review assessed community participation in research phases across CBPR projects since HESPA II. Preliminary results revealed community participation is frequently reported in background research, recruitment, implementation/intervention development, and designing measurement instruments with limited participation in sampling, data analysis, and grant writing research phases. CBPR projects should expand community participation in research to achieve policy change.

Detailed abstract description:

Introduction: Addressing differences in Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) promotes health equity. Public health actions to address SDOH include bringing communities and organizations together to identify concerns and using advocacy to influence policy change (CDC, 2024). Results from Health Education Specialist Practice Analysis (HESPA) II 2020 recognized the increasing importance of advocacy in practice and designated advocacy as its own distinct Area of Responsibility (Knowlden et al., 2020), which was re-validated in HESPA III 2025 (NCHEC, 2025). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an established approach for promoting health equity and achieving upstream changes (Wallerstein et al., 2018). A key principle of CBPR is the facilitation of collaborative partnerships in all phases of research from identifying priorities to disseminating results (Israel et al., 1998). Although research demonstrates community participation in research improves community capacity for advocacy and policy change (Duran et al. 2019; Khodyakov et al., 2011; Viswanathan et al., 2004; Nguyen et al. 2016), few studies have examined the extent to which studies are applying this principle since HESPA II. The purpose of this study is to assess community participation across research phases in recent CBPR projects given its impact on influencing policy change.

Method: We conducted a selective review of SOPHE publications from 2023-2025 using Sage Journals Premier All Access Collection with keyword ‘community-based participatory research.’ Our review assessed community participation in research phases using a tool adapted from the Community Engagement Research Index (CERI) (Khodyakov et al., 2013) and a community involvement measure (Viswanathan et al., 2004). We examined community participation across 11 research phases: grant proposal, background research, choosing research methods, developing sampling procedures, recruitment of participants, implementing/developing the intervention, designing measurement instruments, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of findings, and dissemination.

Results: Preliminary results revealed varying levels of community participation across the 11 research phases ranging from one to eight phases. Researchers and practitioners most frequently reported community participation in background research, recruitment, implementation/intervention development, and designing measurement instruments. Findings suggested limited community participation in sampling, data analysis, and grant writing phases.

Conclusion: Researchers and practitioners leading CBPR projects should expand community participation in research to build community capacity for advocacy and generate community-driven policy and systemic changes to improve SDOH. Publications should explicitly note community participation in research phases to enhance understanding of CBPR principles, facilitate translation of knowledge into practice, and improve replication.