Participation in action: the Healthy African American Families community conference model

The Healthy African American Families project (HAAF) in Los Angeles developed "community conferences" as a method of engaging local community members in mutually beneficial participatory collaborations with academic and clinical researchers. In these conferences, community voices and concerns about a health issue are translated into the language of scientific inquiry. Scientific information and process are translated into forms that can be understood and utilized by the lay community. Equally important, the conference process enables community members to provide input into scientific projects and to take ownership of subsequent interventions resulting from the research conducted in its community. The HAAF conference model is participation in action. It may be useful for other communities engaging in community participatory prevention research.