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A Community-Based Participatory Research Process in a Poor Swedish Neighbourhood

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Abstract

Health is not equally distributed and various neighbourhoods differ from each other in terms of people’s health and other social and economic variables. Numerous efforts are undertaken to develop healthier and more sustainable neighbourhoods, and a key concern in the process is citizen participation. Due to the challenge of conducting research in poor neighbourhood’s complementary research approaches with a more practice-based and democratic knowledge development are needed. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a partnership approach that aims to conduct collaborative knowledge production and to use the research findings for public health interventions. This paper sets out to describe and analyse a community-academic partnership and a CBPR process within a poor neighbourhood in Sweden. Two years of fieldwork were conducted at 26 meetings comprising 84 h in a CBPR group including a researcher, and lay and professional stakeholders. Participatory observation and detailed meeting process-notes were used when doing a qualitative thematic analysis. Eight different developmental phases was identified in the implementation of a CBPR process and four key lessons were found to be important. These were that a community-academic partnership should (1) accept different levels of participation in different phases; (2) openly discuss mutual expectations and individual prerequisites; (3) unmask power and authority; and (4) allow the work to take the time it needs. The design, process, and result of the CBPR project are relevant for local community-academic partnerships using a CBPR approach with the goal of increasing participation as a means of improving people’s health and well-being in poor neighbourhoods.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all group members in the CBPR who made this study possible. Thank you for your engagement, enthusiasm, and valuable experience. We would also like to acknowledge the Partnership for Sustainable Welfare Development for initiating this local CBPR process. In addition, thanks to all the residents who willingly participated in the interviews. The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning supported the study and the research team/program “The Healthy City: Social Inclusion, Urban Governance, and Sustainable Welfare Development”.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing or financial interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Medical Sciences, Örebro University, 701 82, Örebro, Sweden

    Karin Fröding & Charli Eriksson

  2. School of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences, Örebro University, 701 82, Örebro, Sweden

    Ingemar Elander

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  1. Karin Fröding
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  2. Ingemar Elander
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Correspondence to Karin Fröding.

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Fröding, K., Elander, I. & Eriksson, C. A Community-Based Participatory Research Process in a Poor Swedish Neighbourhood. Syst Pract Action Res 28, 19–36 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-014-9319-y

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