Systematizing Planning and Formative Phases of HIV Prevention Research: Case Studies from Brazil, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan

Abstract

Objectives: International Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is vulnerable to contextual, political, and interpersonal issues that may hamper researchers’ abilities to develop and sustain partnerships with local communities. This paper responds to a call for systematizing CBPR practices and to the urgent need for frameworks with potential to facilitate partnership building between researchers and communities in both “developed” and “developing” countries. Methods: Using three brief case examples, each from a different context, with different partners and varied research questions, we demonstrate how to apply the International Participatory Research Framework (IPRF). Results: IPRF consists of triangulated procedures (steps and actions) that can facilitate known participatory outcomes: (1) community-defined research goals, (2) capacity for further research, and (3) policies and programs grounded in research. Conclusions: We show how the application of this model is particularly helpful in the planning and formative phases of CBPR. Other partnerships can use this framework in its entirety or aspects thereof, in different contexts. Further evaluation of how this framework can help other international partnerships, studying myriad diseases and conditions, should be a focus of future international CBPR.