Issue 3

Summer 2003

Q&A: William Tindall on Participatory Research

Wright State University School of Medicine has a long history of responding to community needs. Now there are even more means and opportunities to do so using a methodology known as participatory research. William N. Tindall, Ph.D., R.Ph., professor of family medicine and director of the Alliance for Research in Community Health (ARCH), explains how the model uses community-based collaborating partners to help identify, refine, and validate research questions.

ARCH director William Tindall with community health research advocate Cecilia Ann Smith.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: What is participatory research?

TINDALL: It is research conducted as a partnership between traditionally-trained researchers and lay people in a community. It gives people in a study population a voice in determining what is being studied, and it teaches them the rudiments of research methodology so they can assume collaborative roles. It engages people in a community in all aspects of the research process -- determining research questions, developing approaches to obtain information, and most importantly, deciding what the research means and how it should be used to benefit the community.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: How is participatory research conducted?

TINDALL: Participatory research methods involve more than sampling a population and conducting a survey. It begins by extensive gathering of people's experiences, backgrounds, values, and needs using focus groups and other social science techniques. How the community articulates its feelings about a problem leads to a researchable question. In this early stage, researchers must be culturally competent about how a community perceives itself and those in it. A critically sensitive role for the researchers also exists in that they must demystify research methods in such a way as to build community trust so that community stakeholders will want to stay involved throughout the study and help with the development of solutions that affect them.

Participatory research does not create a theory or test a hypothesis; rather, it evaluates relevant and practical ideas. It is sometimes called "action research" because it uses data to identify action steps that a community can take to solve local problems.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: What are some examples?

TINDALL: How could we decrease infant mortality rates in a Boston African American community? What are culturally appropriate interventions to increase breast and cervical cancer screening practices among native Hawaiian women? How can a community that has lost a major health-care resource provide effective care to children with asthma? These are just a few of many examples in the recent literature.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: Who is funding this kind of research?

TINDALL: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has assumed a leadership role and is funding a number of initiatives. Other NIH institutes and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are also funding participatory research.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: How is Wright State involved?

TINDALL: The Center for Healthy Communities and ARCH are involving people in the Dayton community who normally are shut out from research and information gathering. We are teaching research methodology to community health advocates in a formal training program at Sinclair Community College. ARCH created a staff position for one of the advocates, Cecilia Smith, to help build research collaborations in the community.

Participatory research is an excellent compliment for a community-based medical school that emphasizes primary care. The North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) maintains that primary care providers are uniquely positioned to share this research process with people in communities where they practice.

Participatory research can benefit other Wright State researchers because it responds to the latest thinking about who owns new knowledge, how it should be produced, and how it should be used to empower the community from which it comes.

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: How does the community benefit?

TINDALL: If research is to provide help to people who need it most, it makes sense to get them involved in developing questions, determining methodology, and using research outcomes to help their community. Participatory research creates new trusting relationships in the community, helping to bridge cultural gaps. It enhances the relevance and use of research data by all the participants, and it increases the likelihood that behavioral change interventions will be adopted in a community in cost-efficient ways.

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