Community-Based Participatory Research

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) positions historically and traditionally oppressed individuals and groups across communities as scholars and research partners. Honoring the essence of participatory research, university-based scholars who are engaged in this work are connected to and accountable to the concerns, hopes, and solutions of community members who lead/co-lead the inquiry. This means that the research team studies concerns and implements solutions that come from individuals and groups within the focal community(s). This is critical because interventions for disabled adults, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and complex supports needs in particular, related to housing, employment, health care, transportation, and so on have often originated from outside the community rather than from within it. By grounding in community knowledge, implications for research, policy, practice, and service delivery from CBPR inquiries can have applicability to wider audiences and the potential to build deeper capacity for change within and across communities and broader society.