Methods

The evaluation on which this report is based was limited to CRC full awards granted in CBCRP award cycles IV-V (1998-1999), in order to capture information from completed grants only. Interviews were conducted with both academic and community principal investigators of these awards. In addition, in order to determine the impact on the community of participating in community-based participatory research, the executive director or board president of the community organization was interviewed if the community principal investigator was no longer with the organization. If more than two people were identified in the grant report as principal investigators, they were all interviewed.

Seven teams were included in the evaluation. At least one person representing the community organization and one academic researcher were interviewed for each project. Twelve of thirteen eligible individuals representing the community and all nine eligible academically-trained scientists were interviewed. Teams were randomly assigned a team label, A through G, to protect confidentiality. A list of the seven projects with the names and affiliations of those participating in this evaluation is provided in Appendix D.

Consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants prior to conducting the study through a mailed letter and consent form, and again at the beginning of the interviews.

An interview protocol was developed from previous interviews used for other evaluation studies at the CBCRP and from a literature review on community-based participatory research. The questions covered the impact and outcome of community-based participatory research on the community, the academic scientists, and the research itself. Also covered were the facilitating and limiting partnership characteristics that led to positive or negative outcomes. The interview questions were pilot tested and minor changes were made before implementation.

A trained interviewer conducted standardized open-ended interviews over the telephone with each eligible individual. Each interview was taped and transcribed by an outside service. Both the interviewer and the evaluator compared the audio interview with the transcription to ensure accuracy. The evaluator analyzed text from the transcripts using a computer-assisted qualitative analysis program.

The evaluator developed a classification system to assign scores to each of the expected outcomes and partnership characteristics described below in Tables 1 and 2. The scores ranged from 0 (reflecting no evidence of the outcome or characteristic), to a 1, 2, or 3 (reflecting greater degrees of evidence of the outcome or characteristic). For example, one valuable outcome of any research project is the number of publications that result. In this evaluation, teams with more publications were awarded more points than teams with fewer publications.

Four areas of potential outcomes were assessed, with each area including sub-areas of four to seven elements, as seen in Table 1 below.

Three areas of partnership characteristics were assessed, with each area including subareas of three to five elements, as seen in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Partnership Characteristics and Indicators Assessed

Demographic Characteristics
As seen in Table 3 below, academic partners reported having been involved in breast cancer for twice as long as community partners. Academic partners were also more likely to be white and to have had previous collaborative research experience. Four academic partners have or had tenure, four were in non-tenure-track positions, and one was a nontenure- track junior researcher. Nine of the community partners reported having at least a master’s level education. All seven teams reported having at least one community member with at least a master’s-level education, with four teams having at least one community member with an M.D. and/or Ph.D.

Table 3: Participant Demographics

Among the seven teams, one reported having an academic partner with no collaborative research experience, one had an academic partner with minimal collaborative research experience, and the other five teams had at least one academic partner with extensive collaborative research experience.

Of the seven teams, two had community partners with no previous collaborative research experience, three had community partners with minimal to some collaborative research experience, and only two teams had community partners with extensive collaborative research experience.

In two of the seven teams, both the community and academic partners had none to minimal past experience with community-based participatory research.