Addressing challenges in participatory research partnerships in the North: opening a conversation

I nterest and experience in participatory research projects has been growing for some time in the North, yet lessons learned from these complex and still evolving community campus partnerships are still rarely shared in the general peer-reviewed literature. An electronic search of this Journal’s archives netted just four papers in the past five years that included Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) among key words (1 4), and these primarily focused on results. Yet, as many know who have been engaged in such partnerships, it is often the process of engagement between diverse partners, and the local strategies created to address inevitable tensions that arise within such collaborations, which give rise to deeper understandings of shared health issues, and support novel interventions and outcomes. The recognition of potential ethical challenges unique to this type of engaged, adaptable and flexible community research is also growing (5), but this too is still fairly rare in the literature. One brief 2005 news item in the Journal linked to a variety of generic ethical guidelines for northern researchers (6), but it included no specific examples of projects that had actually used any of these guidelines, and there have been few, if any, opportunities for researchers and community partners to share in print their experiences and lessons learned. It was in this context that initial planning for this Special Issue began in Fall 2010. The original intent and call was for original research papers, as well as expository and survey papers that should inform our shared understanding of at least one of the following aspects of CBPR, with a particular focus on northern communities and projects: