GLOSSARY Participatory action research

Correspondence to: Professor F Baum, Department of Public Health, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001; fran.baum@ flinders.edu.au . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P articipatory action research (PAR) differs from most other approaches to public health research because it is based on reflection, data collection, and action that aims to improve health and reduce health inequities through involving the people who, in turn, take actions to improve their own health. PAR has a number of antecedents. It reflects questioning about the nature of knowledge and the extent to which knowledge can represent the interests of the powerful and serve to reinforce their positions in society. It affirms that experience can be a basis of knowing and that experiential learning can lead to a legitimate form of knowledge that influences practice. Adult educators in low income countries drew on these intellectual perspectives to develop a form of research that was sympathetic to the participatory nature of adult learning. This perspective was strongly supported by the work of Freire, who used PAR to encourage poor and deprived communities to examine and analyse the structural reasons for their oppression. From these roots PAR grew as a methodology enabling researchers to work in partnership with communities in a manner that leads to action for change.