NARCH V – Research for Change: Cross-Site Multi-cultural Community-Based Participatory Research

In an effort to improve the health of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) tribal communities, this project seeks to understand the range of ways that communities are engaged as partners in their own health research and intervention projects. By also including other communities of color and communities that face health disparities in the study design, this work has the possibility of extending beneficial findings within the AI/AN communities to a broader audience. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we will partner over the course of four years with community and academic health research and intervention partnerships across the country to better understand the factors that contribute to and detract from meaningful and effective community-academic partnerships. AI/AN tribal communities have taken a strong lead in this area of work because they face some of the most significant health disparities in the nation and have similarly suffered some of the greatest documented research abuses. The study is being conducted by the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center, the University of New Mexico Center for Participatory Research, and the University of Washington Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. It is funded by the Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.