Conclusions
The Community Research Collaboration awards are an effective way to create meaningful partnerships of community members and researchers to conduct breast cancer research. While the development of authentic partnerships was inconsistent, collaboration was cited by most participants as adding important value to most steps in the research project.
Each CRC project reported successful outcomes in the four dimensions evaluated: (1) The CRC project improved knowledge, programs, and policies related to breast cancer; (2) participating in the CRC project positively impacted the quality of the research; (3) participating in the CRC project positively impacted the community partner(s) and members of the community; and (4) participating in the CRC project positively impacted the academic partner. Each project also reported some success with each of the three partnership dimensions evaluated: (1) collaboration and power sharing by partners; (2) healthy group dynamics of team; and (3) involvement of broader community and community organization.
In this evaluation, those teams that more closely reflected authentic partnerships had the most successful outcomes evident from their research project and partnership. The three teams with the most successful outcomes from their research reported the highest involvement of both the broader community and the board and staff from their community organizations.
Although implementation of truly collaborative relationships was inconsistent among the teams, the lack of collaboration was not due to lack of interest or beliefs that it wasn’t important. Some teams lacked models for collaboration in more technically sophisticated areas, such as data analysis. They also lacked funding to keep all partners involved in the dissemination stage, an understanding of the importance of clarifying assumptions, and written agreements.
