Establishing Principles for Community-Based Research

Abstract

Academic health centers and their universities are increasingly encouraged to engage in more community-based and participatory approaches to research. Yet, traditional ethics guidelines and regulations are inadequate for addressing the dynamics of community-campus research partnerships. In this article, the authors share stories from the Community Research Collaborative (CRC), a collective of community leaders and faculty that published guidelines for community-based research (CBR). The CRC offers a case study in how a collaborative process of developing CBR guidelines can create space for partners to wrestle with the historical and present-day harms carried out in indigenous and minoritized communities in the name of science and to imagine alternative ways of working together collectively. This case study highlights the complex power dynamics inherent in community-campus partnerships and how storytelling can play a role in unearthing and addressing them. It positions the work of the CRC as incomplete and evolving while offering a foundation on which other institutions could carry out similar processes in their localities.