Challenges in community-based participatory research

It was music to my ears reading about the ways in which community‐based participatory research (CBPR) challenges exist in medical research structures and paradigms. In the Handbook of community‐based participatory research, the chapter by Kendall and colleagues shows the issues that arise when gaining ethics approval for CBPR, noting that the ethics committees often “impose unnecessary and time‐consuming bureaucratic processes that do nothing to ensure the ethical well‐being of research subjects”. They also examine the ways in which undertaking CBPR may be a career‐limiting move because of the “publish or perish” mentality that drives contemporary academia. Further, they point out that is very hard to get CBPR funded through most health and medical funding bodies. Such are these difficulties that the authors suggest it might be a challenge for ambitious early and mid‐career researchers to engage in CBPR, despite the many benefits that are documented through the book.