Interrogating academic hegemony in community-based participatory research to address health inequities

Community-based participatory research holds promise for addressing health inequities. It focuses on issues salient to specific populations, prioritizes community engagement and amplifies the voices of marginalized populations in policy formulation and designing interventions. Although communities are partners, academic hegemony limits their level of influence over the research initiative. Drawing from our own collaborative research experiences, we raise questions for community-engaged health services researchers to reflect upon as a means of interrogating academic hegemony in partnerships that seek to address health inequities. We describe what it means for researchers to acknowledge and relinquish the power they wield in the community-engaged health services research enterprise. We propose three guiding principles for advancing equity: authentic engagement, defining and living values, and embracing accountability.