Stirring the social pot. Community effects of program and policy research

The increasing interest in a national health program will lead to major changes in healthcare. The coming changes will be larger perhaps than those of the past decade and almost certainly will be outward--outside large institutions, into communities. Community relations will become increasingly important and therefore should become a part of studies to guide administrative decisions regarding program development. Administrators and their research collaborators should be aware of the unintended "side effects" of such community-oriented research. These effects have organizational and research implications that decision makers may choose to use to build community-organization alliances and promote public education to create supportive and informed consumers and a responsive healthcare system.