Communities and Academia Work Together on Public

¶ … communities and academia work together on public health research? The article was a formative evaluation of the first 4 years of the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (URC), a community-based participatory research partnership that was founded in 1995 with funds from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The goal of the research was to examine the evaluation efforts looking at the URC, and presents the results of those evaluations so that people funding community partnerships can assess those partnership approaches to public health.

The evaluations were qualitative, rather than quantitative in nature, though the researchers made efforts to codify the results so that they could be presented in a quantitative manner as well as a qualitative manner. By doing so, they could see, at a glance, how many of the stakeholders mentioned particular parts of the project in a positive way and how many of them mentioned particular parts of the project in a negative way.

The evaluation focuses on "assessing board members' perceptions, experiences, and views in the following areas: (1) URC Board activities, processes, and progress; (2) principal accomplishments; (3) adherence to the principles of the project for community-based participatory research; (4)facilitating factors; (5) barriers and challenges; and (6) hopes and recommendations for future work" (Lantz et al., 2001). The researchers used three different sources of information to collect the needed data. For 1996, they used a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with then-current board members and key stakeholders.

For 1999, they used a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with then-current board members and key stakeholders. The interviews had 100% response rates. For the interview results, the interviewer and an assistant both took written notes; the notes were reconciled, and then transcribed. Results were then coded to see potential matches between the different responses of the various stakeholders. For 1997, 1998, and 1999, they used a series of questionnaires to key stakeholders and board members.

The mailed surveys had 100%, 100%, and 95% response rates, respectively, so that the 1999 mailed survey results were the only results that did not have total response from all of the stakeholders. The researchers used simple descriptive analysis to look at the results. While the researchers were evaluating these documents, they also engaged in an ongoing review of field notes and other documents (Lantz et. al, 2001).

The study was aimed at finding out the opinions of the board members and other stakeholders regarding whether academia and the community could work together on public health research. It did not purport to quantitatively describe the rate of success for these projects. In other words, the results were simply the opinions of the people involved in the project. Moreover, the researchers were clear about the limitations of the results; in their discussion session the researchers openly acknowledged that they were seeking input from these stakeholders.

This was not the limitation that one.