Journal Article

Barriers And Facilitators To Community-Based Participatory Mental Health Care Research For Racial And Ethnic Minorities

Chambers, Valeria, Delman, Deborah, Delman, Jonathan, Progovac, Ana M., Cook, Benjamin Lê, Flomenhoft, Tali

2019

Overview

People with serious mental illnesses, particularly members of racial and ethnic minority groups, are rarely included in prioritizing research topics or developing the tools and measures important for improving their care. Community-based participatory research holds promise toward reducing mental health disparities. However, initiating research partnerships with community stakeholders is challenging and does not always lead to sustainable community health improvements. Using lessons learned from a project to improve understanding of patients' preferences and discrimination in depression and diabetes treatment, we describe barriers and facilitators to initiating a meaningful partnership with disenfranchised groups. Barriers fell within four domains: trepidation of community stakeholders, complex research methods, uncertainty among academic partners, and unclear partnership decision-making protocols. Primary facilitators included the meaningfulness of the research topic to the community, the presence of a well-established community-based organization, academic financial investment, co-learning activities, and flexibility. Successful initiation of these partnerships holds significant potential for addressing health care disparities.

• Publisher: The People to People Health Foundation, Inc., Project HOPE
• Subject: Advocacy / Barriers / Clinical decision making / Communication / Community / Community based action research / Community health / Community involvement / Community organizations / Community participation / Community research / Community-Based Participatory Research / Constraints / Decision making / Diabetes / Diabetes mellitus / Discrimination / Domains / Educational activities / Ethnic factors / Ethnic groups / Ethnicity / Flexibility / Group dynamics / Health care / Health disparities / Health research / Health services / Health Services Accessibility / Health Services Research - methods / Humans / Illnesses / Inclusion / Interest groups / Investments / Leadership / Learning / Learning activities / Marginalized groups / Medical research / Medical treatment / Meetings / Mental depression / Mental disorders / Mental Disorders - therapy / Mental health / Mental health care / Mental Health Services / Minority & ethnic groups / Minority Groups / Participatory research / Partnerships / Patient Preference - ethnology / Patients / Prioritizing / Racial Groups / Racism - psychology / Research methodology / Research methods / Research partnerships / Researchers / Stakeholders / Startups / Stigma / Uncertainty / Underserved populations