Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an integrated public health framework for different stakeholders to take part in decision-making processes (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2004). The framework premises on fair partnerships among different stakeholders, such as community members and organizational representatives, in the health sector (Liu et al., 2011). Public health researchers say the main goal of CBPR is to increase the knowledge and understanding of health interventions (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2004). The same process encourages public health workers to use this knowledge to formulate public health policies and to promote social change. When done correctly, community-based participatory research could promote the goals of all health stakeholders. For example, CBPR could bridge the gap between theory and practice (in public health practice) by transferring knowledge from scientists to communities (Liu et al., 2011). This way, the latter would be better equipped to improve their welfare. Here, CBPR would create “culturally appropriate” tools for improving community health (AHRQ, 2012). This contribution would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of proposed health interventions. Most communities could realize these efficiencies by nurturing trust between health workers and community members. This cooperation also helps to develop quality health data (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2004). Nonetheless, broadly, the biggest benefit of adopting the CBPR approach is its ability to know a community’s dynamics and design health interventions that appeal to them (Liu et al., 2011).
CBPR could improve the effectiveness of public health campaigns in many ways. Based on this contribution, it could also improve the design of the Ebola public health campaign in Sierra Leone. For example, it could improve collaborative inquiry processes for the campaign (AHRQ, 2012). Using community-specific factors, CBPR could also identify unique social dynamics of Sierra Leone communities that would affect the design and implementation processes of the proposed public health campaign (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2004). This way, public health workers would know useful information about community dynamics and understand what to avoid, or include, in the Ebola prevention campaign. The CBPR could also be useful in minimizing the mistrust between Sierra Leone communities and public health officials. It would do so through reciprocal learning (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2004). In the same way, it could address translation challenges that affect health communication interventions and help public health workers to sustain newly introduced health interventions within specific community contexts (AHRQ, 2012). The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2004) says the tool has yielded positive results in cancer research, using the same method.
Implementing public health campaigns could have significant legal and ethical implications. Most of the ethical and legal issues surrounding CBPR also emerge in other social research studies (Liu et al., 2011). However, they are more profound in CBPR. The same issues would also affect the design and decision-making processes of the Ebola campaign. A significant ethical issue that could emerge in this campaign is the ethics of partnership and collaboration. This ethical concern is real because exploitation could occur through close partnerships among stakeholders. Since partnerships often evolve over time, there is a strong need to review them as stakeholder engagements continue. This process would help to decrease the possibility of exploitation. One legal issue that I could consider, before implementing the public health campaign, is the ownership of data, findings and publications of the public health program (Nguyen, Hsu, Kue, Nguyen, &Yeun, 2010). This legal issue could emerge from including many partners in the public health campaign. Here, lawyers would have to resolve conflicts of interest regarding who takes credit for the research findings and outcomes. Mostly, recognizing the copyright laws of the country would help to solve such problems (Nguyen et al., 2010).
Avoiding ethical and legal issues in public health research and programs would help to improve the credibility of the Sierra Leone public health campaign. This paper has already shown that ethical concerns surrounding collaboration and partnerships could emerge in the Ebola public health campaign. To mitigate such ethical and legal problems, it is important to have an equitable partnership framework where all members have equal contribution to the health campaign (Liu et al., 2011). This means that if there are four partners in the campaign, each should have a 25% contribution to the public health program formulation process. Similarly, a democratic process should allow each partner to contribute amicably to the public health campaign (Nguyen et al., 2010). This structure would make sure that everyone’s views are in the final public health campaign. Within this structure, a clear framework should outline the decision-making process (Nguyen et al., 2010). Similarly, there should be a legal arrangement that describes what would happen if members disagree about an issue. For example, in conventional democratic decision-making structures, the majority decision prevails. The decision-making process of the public health campaign could have the same structure. Lastly, formulating a legal agreement that describes the nature of each partner’s contribution to the public health campaign would help to mitigate legal challenges that may appear when allocating credits to the partners. This way, each of them would know who takes credit for the findings, thereby eliminating conflicts of interest that could arise from the health campaign. These measures would protect the public health campaign from unwanted legal, or ethical, issues.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2004). Community-based participatory research: Assessing the evidence. Web.
AHRQ. (2012). Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality activities involving CBPR to reduce health disparities. Web.
Liu, J., McCauley, L., Leung, P., Wang, B., Needleham, H., & Pinto-Martin, J. (2011). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to study children’s health in China: Experiences and reflections. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 48(7), 904-913.
Nguyen, G., Hsu, L., Kue, K.N., Nguyen, T., &Yeun, E. J. (2010). Partnering to collect health services and public health data in hard-to-reach communities: a community-based participatory research approach for collecting community health data. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 4(2), 115-119.