Learn to conduct research focused on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of specific populations and use community understanding of health problems to tailor interventions and education to those communities.
Community-based participatory research and practice (CBPRP) has emerged as a core discipline in behavioral and social science departments within schools of public health. CBPRP is a collaborative process of research and practice that includes both researchers and community representatives. Communities are generally defined as those that share a unit of identity (e.g. social ties, geographical locations). The CBPRP process involves engaging community members, using local knowledge in the understanding of health problems, and a long-term commitment to partnership. CBPRP is oriented towards holistic interventions informed by social ecology modeling, a widely recognized approach that not only targets knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals, but also includes social factors such as family and friendship ties, community norms, and the structure of community services.
Students in the CBPRP certificate program will be able to ...
- demonstrate and practice the basic tenets of community-based participatory research and practice,
- identify methods for assessing community concerns and needs vis-à-vis specific health issues and assessing community resources, and potential community partners for address specific health issues in a community, and
- develop strategies to work collaboratively with community members.