The WE Project Partnership: The Role and Scope of Community Researchers

Background: Academic-community partnerships form the backbone of community-based participatory research. This partnership often supports the hiring and training of community members in the role of community researcher. A community researcher’s role is extensive, ranging from specific research tasks to various planned and unplanned community outreach and engagement activities. This paper seeks to expand current insights about engaging community members in the role of community researcher within the context of an academic-community partnership.

Objectives: The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore community member motivations to serve in this role and more fully understand the varied tasks, both planned and opportunistic, that may be associated with their embedded, insider role.

Method: Conducted thematic qualitative data analysis using three data sources: 1) community researcher applications, 2) meetings, and 3) bi-monthly reports.

Results: Community researchers (N = 24) demonstrated a strong personal passion and interest in both the research content area of obesity and improving community health outcomes. The bi-monthly report data documents their wide range of administrative, research, and outreach activities. The meeting notes provide in-depth insights into the complexities and challenges associated with research and outreach tasks.

Conclusion: The role of the community researcher traverses well beyond prescribed data collection and research functions. Academic-community partnerships need to be intentional to ensure that policies and practices are inclusive and appropriately demonstrate the community researcher’s valuable role.