Data Dissemination in CBPR: Accountability and Responsiveness

Community based participatory research (CBPR) is centered on the principle that research should be a collaborative process and that, ideally, community members be involved in all aspects of the research process from design to dissemination. Yet the standard form of dissemination in academia is publication in academic journals or presentations at academic conferences – dissemination pathways which are rarely accessible or useful to lay persons in the community. The purpose of this paper is to describe two unique strategies used to disseminate the results of a needs assessment conducted as part of a CBPR project in Petersburg, Virginia: (1) a “Youth Day” World Café event, and (2) the use of ethnodrama. In addition, the paper will examine how these processes of dissemination contributed to the bi-directional transfer and sharing of knowledge between the community and researchers. The “Youth Day” and ethnodrama described in this paper are two successful examples of innovative dissemination strategies employed to engage the community with research findings, validate the findings, and aptly demonstrate how empirical findings emanating from the community can inform intervention development.