Community Building Community: The Distinct Benefits of Community Partners Building Other Communities' Capacity to...

Area of Science:

• Community-based participatory research
• Health disparities research
• Capacity building in public health

Background:

• Traditional academic-community research partnerships often focus on academics building community capacity.
• Few documented instances exist of community partners leading the development of research capacity among other communities.
• This paper explores the advantages of inter-community knowledge exchange for enhancing health research capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the benefits of communities sharing "best practices" with one another.
• To highlight a model for building community-driven research capacity.
• To inform strategies for empowering communities in health research.

Main Methods:

• The study involved leaders from two counties within the Faith Academic Initiatives Transforming Health (FAITH) in the Delta program.
• Community leaders exchanged "best practices" for establishing faith-based networks and developing community health assessment tools.
• A collective health assessment was conducted through this collaborative exchange.

Main Results:

• Engaging communities to build each other's capacity yielded significant strengths.
• Participants experienced enhanced community identification and perceived genuineness.
• The process facilitated the transfer of legitimacy and invaluable insider knowledge.

Conclusions:

• Community-to-community capacity building in research is a viable and potent strategy.
• This approach leverages shared experiences and local knowledge for effective research.
• Empowering communities to lead research capacity development holds significant potential for addressing health disparities.