On measuring community participation in research

Area of Science:

• Community-based participatory research
• Health services research
• Social sciences

Background:

• Community partner involvement in research is assumed beneficial but difficult to measure.
• Empirical determination of community engagement value requires robust participation metrics.
• Behavioral health research highlights the need for effective measurement tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and compare two methods for measuring community participation in research.
• To evaluate the strengths and limitations of a "three-model" approach and the Community Engagement in Research Index (CERI).
• To offer insights into the complexity of measuring community engagement in research.

Main Methods:

• Utilized semistructured interview and survey data from community-academic partnered projects.
• Developed a "three-model" approach to differentiate participation levels.
• Constructed the Community Engagement in Research Index (CERI) for a multidimensional assessment.

Main Results:

• The "three-model" approach provides a simple perception measure of community participation.
• CERI offers a more nuanced understanding by capturing multiple facets of engagement.
• The study identified limitations in the reliability of simple measurement scores.

Conclusions:

• CERI provides a more comprehensive assessment of community engagement in research compared to simpler models.
• Accurate measurement is essential for understanding the impact of community involvement in research.
• Further research is needed to validate these measurement approaches.