Participatory research—A modernizing science for primary health care

Abstract

Participatory research is the science of partnerships underlying research, concerned with research governance, ownership of research products, and relationships behind research objectives and methods. The common strand behind the quite different schools of participatory research is that research should be in respectful partnership with people; it is not about researchers working on, for, or about people. Modern participatory research embraces different philosophies through several applications. The first application addresses research objectives, with participation at different points in the research cycle. Second, modern participatory research is relevant in adaptive management, including management of primary health care. Third, participatory research is a tool for patient engagement and patient-centered outcomes in the clinical context. A fourth application is participatory research as an intervention: Participatory research moves people, and it mobilizes resources and can thus be pivotal to sustainability and for health-promoting intersectoral linkages. As primary health care is a family medicine responsibility, participatory research offers family medicine a valuable toolbox complementing the accepted clinical toolboxes. Through shared identification of problems and decisions about solutions, participatory research increases participant capacity to identify and address their own issues. Among clinicians, it enhances professional practices. In the bigger social picture, all this promotes social justice, self-determination, and knowledge utilization.