Opportunities and challenges associated with engaging immigrant women in participatory action research

With increasing recognition of the importance of knowledge exchange between researchers and research stakeholders, community member involvement remains poorly accessed. A promising community-based research methodology for knowledge exchange is participatory action research (PAR). This review examines opportunities and challenges associated with using PAR to examine issues related to community health, specifically that of immigrant women. The literature search included published and grey literature relevant to immigrant women and PAR. PAR actively engages community members of the study population throughout the research process. The involvement of immigrant women in research that explores issues pertinent to their health is essential to conducting relevant research to subsequently inform policies and programs. There are numerous advantages to using a PAR approach, including enhanced research relevance and utilization; notwithstanding, there are challenges to overcome in order to engage community based immigrant women in research. Ultimately, policies that have contextual grounding through PAR have better likelihood of effectively addressing priority issues for immigrant women.