Frequently Asked Questions

Some common elements of community are:

• Locus (a sense of place) - city, village, neighborhood, workplace, etc.
• Sharing (sharing common interests and perspectives)
• Joint action (joint actions that bring people together)
• Social ties (family, friends)
• Diversity

• Community stakeholders on project steering committees and other deliberative and decision-making bodies
• Community advisory boards
• Compensation for the community's time and other contributions
• Dissemination of results back out to the community
• Takes time! 

• Focus groups or interviews
• A research methodology
• A bolt-on
• A one-size fits all approach
• Appropriate for all research
• Recruitment of minority research participants
• A relinquishing of all insight or control by researchers

Community Barriers

• History of leaving community concerns and interests out of the research agenda, leading to caution on the part of communities
  • Topics selected without determining if they addressed perceived needs of the community
  • Studies conducted "on" communities; only community involvement was community members as research subjects
  • No mechanisms for sharing research findings or continuing successful programs
  • Communities felt they seldom received benefits from the research
• Time: research often an additional responsibility for already overworked individuals in organizations with their own mission and mandates to fulfill.
• Unclear distinctions between research, advocacy and administrative change can lead to unrealistic expectations.

Academic Barriers

• Time: building partnerships, negotiating, planning and communicating are all time consuming activities over and above regular research opportunities
• The community-engaged research approach may not fit neatly within the academic status quo, leading to funding and promotion challenges
• Expectations for dissemination of results:
  • Community members often expect to hear about results soon after the research is completed; don't want to wait the months or years it takes to appear in academic journals
  • Some academic journals (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA) will not publish articles whose findings have been previously disseminated via newspaper, TV, etc.
  • Given the above, how to give results to the community in a timely manner without compromising the researcher's ability to present findings in academic venues.
• Please see the resources on the Community Engagement Resources page for assistance in overcoming these barriers.

Meaningful community involvement can improve the research process itself, and therefore the ultimate findings:

• Develop research questions concerning health issues of concern to the community
• Help recruiting participants - people more likely to support the research and researchers when they understand the purpose of the research and how the results may affect them.
• Identify risks associated with participation and help develop appropriate ways to protect participants.
• Improves study and instrument design through community input to produce user friendly, culturally sensitive, accurate and valid practices and measures.
• Involvement in analysis and interpretation can provide important explanations of results, and local interpretation may provide ideas the researchers had not considered.
• Opportunity to build greater trust and respect between researchers and communities. This may lead to future research collaborations.
• Research may be more likely to lead to improvements in community health.

Insert Meharry image