Old Wine in New Bottles? The Positioning of Participation in 17 NIH-Funded CBPR Projects

Abstract

Influenced by Cooke and Kothari's (2001) suggestion that participation “remains a way of talking about rather than doing things” (p. 32), we question to what extent this is true in the public health funding process. Thus, the aim of this article was to investigate the ways in which recent National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects discursively positioned CBPR in their grant applications. We collected 17 NIH-funded CBPR proposals, analyzed them using a grounded theory approach, and subjected the findings to critical analysis focusing on the definition of community, the type of community “participation” promoted, and the nature of the research proposed. We conclude that certain types of CBPR projects are privileged in the funding review process and discuss the implications of these findings for future CBPR praxis.

Notes

¹The following search criteria were used to conduct the search: [Search terms: CBPR; Award Type: All Types; Award Activity: All Activities; IRG: All; Institutes and Centers: All; Fiscal Year: 2003–2007; State: All].

²We chose to keep only the first iteration of funding for a project, deleting database entries representing renewal of funding for projects (i.e., several projects were listed two, three, or four times in the CRISP search and we deleted these subsequent listings). From this search procedure we arrived at a pool of 60 projects.

³Because the documents analyzed were grant proposals and thus did not describe outcomes, the “aims/purpose” and “outcome” guidelines were collapsed into one purpose code.

⁴We have randomly assigned numbers to each grant narrative analyzed. We avoid presenting a more thorough description of the projects as these details may serve as project identifiers and conflict with the terms of confidentiality established in our recruitment process.

⁵A promotora/o is a lay health worker in Latino communities typically engaged in raising awareness of health issues and acting as a cultural “liaison” between the community and researchers.

⁶This is unsurprising as 13 of the 17 projects were funded through the NIH's R21 or R24 grant mechanisms. The R21 is intended to encourage exploratory or developmental research projects by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of development. The R24 typically supports projects to enhance basic, translational, and clinical research through the development of resources and infrastructure.