Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action

Abstract:

Background: Community–academic partnerships are increasingly used in interventions to address health care disparities. Little is known about motivations and perceptions of participating community members.

Objectives: To elicit community members’ perspectives of involvement in a community–academic partnership to address implicit bias in health care.

Methods: With our partnering community organizer, we conducted one-on-one semistructured interviews and a follow-up group interview with participating community members to solicit experiences about involvement in an National Institutes of Health–funded clinician training; responses were organized using content analysis.

Results: Community members revealed that their participation was motivated by trust in our community organizer; they derived personal pride from participation in clinician training; the power differential between community members and clinicians in the training environment needed to be levelled. Our community organizer noted that the benefits of community–academic partnerships propagate to the larger community via community members’ experiences.

Conclusions: Community members note trust, pride, and power as important elements in community–academic partnership.