By Sophia Kamanzi, MD candidate, School of Medicine
My first encounter with participatory action research (a method that centers involving community members in the research process) was a few years ago when I was working at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago as a Clinical Research Coordinator. I attended a research presentation advertised in a hospital newsletter as a youth-led project about the mental health of young men of color. The participatory action research project was a collaboration between Communities United and Lurie Children’s. Young Black and Brown men were given the opportunity to play a role in what research in their community looked like and play a key role in thinking about not only outcomes, but future actions. Watching them presenting their recommendations to a room full of adult employees was something that stuck with me and inspired me to learn more about what it means to ethically partner with communities to do research.
I have spent the past year working with the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research (CCHPR). More specifically, I am helping execute a grant awarded to Angela Brown, MD and Centennial Christian Church that focuses on partnership development. Over the past few months, CCHPR and Centennial have had conversations around their intentions for the partnership, goals, and check-ins.
Our current project is doing a community assessment of the neighborhoods the church serves to get local input as the church thinks about restructuring their ministries/outreach programming. Doing this work well and seeing Centennial as an equal partner requires moving at the pace of community in a way where CCHPR values the quality of the partnership/work more than the speed of it.
The Partnership Development Support and Sustainability grant allows researchers to prioritize building a meaningful partnership and creating a foundation before engaging in more elaborate research or grant proposals. It is powerful opportunity in a realm where how research is funded clashes with the realities of meaningful and ethical community engagement in research.
True partnership involves allowing community members to help shape your thesis which requires not only additional time, but also trust between both parties.
This is especially true when doing research with communities who have been harmed by research in the past. It is inherently slow which is at odds with the cycles of year-long research grants.
My time working on this grant has been the most rewarding part of my medical student career so far. I have learned that successful partnership building should occur outside of a purely research context. It is important for researchers to give as much as they take. Have your meeting at their office sometimes. Go to their events or find ways to support their mission. If these things sound unappealing, consider whether you genuinely want to be in community with the people you are establishing research partnerships with. The staff at CCHPR have taught me what it looks like to form meaningful and productive relationships with community. Their lessons are ones I will carry with me as I continue my medical career.