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Resources & Links

This section includes a list of web resources and links related to Community-Based Research (CBR) and social determinants of health for newcomers and/or racialized groups. If there is a website or resource that you feel we should include on this page, please email your suggestion to: research@accessalliance.ca

Toronto-Area Organizations conducting/supporting CBR

AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) – Research with a Purpose
http://www.actoronto.org/website/home.nsf/pages/research!opendocument&menuitem=researchitem
This site includes information on projects that ACT has conducted and links to Community Based Researchi Resources, many of which are relevant to the HIV/AIDS ‘sector’.

Centre for Research on Inner City Health
http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/crich/index.php
The Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH) is dedicated to reducing health inequities through innovative research that supports social change. They conduct research to better understand the linkages between poverty, social exclusion, and poor health. They work in partnership with community agencies and decision-makers to evaluate “what works” to improve health outcomes for inner city populations.

Centre for Urban Health Initiatives
http://www.cuhi.utoronto.ca/
CUHI undertakes and funds research on a variety of urban health issues. They also sponsor the annual Community-Based Research Award of Merit in partnership with the Wellesley Institute and University College, University of Toronto.

Cities Centre, University of Toronto
http://www.citiescentre.utoronto.ca/
The Cities Centre is a multi-disciplinary research institute established February 2007. The mandate of the Centre is to encourage and facilitate research, both scholarly and applied, on cities and city regions and on a wide range of urban policy issues, both in Canada and abroad, and to provide a gateway for communication between the University and the broader urban community.

Mennonite New Life Centre of Toronto
The Mennonite New Life Centre’smission is to facilitate newcomersettlement and integration through holistic services and community engagement, carried out within a gender justice an anti-oppression framework. The have recently released a report on a Participatory Action Research project looking at access to fair and meaningful employment for newcomers.

Ontario HIV Treatment Network
http://http://www.ohtn.on.ca/Pages/Research/Community-Based-Research.aspx
The OHTN supports and encourages high quality HIV/AIDS-related community-based research in Ontario.

Ontario Women’s Health Network
http://www.owhn.on.ca/research_projects.htm
The Ontario Women's Health Network (OWHN) is a network of individuals and organizations that promotes women's health. Research projects conducted by OWHN have used an inclusion research approach to examine topics such as stroke prevention and social inclusion and housing.

Planned Parenthood Toronto
http://www.ppt.on.ca/training_communityresearch.asp
In an effort to continue to expand knowledge and engage the community in new and interesting ways, Planned Parenthood Toronto has undertaken a commitment to community-based research (CBR) projects. Planned Parenthood conducted the Toronto Teen Survey, which uses a CBR approach to gather information from diverse Toronto youth on assets, gaps and barriers that currently exist in sexual health education and services. The project findings will be used to develop a city-wide strategy to increase positive sexual health outcomes for diverse Toronto youth.

Street Health
http://www.streethealth.ca/home.htm
Street Health is a non-profit community-based agency providing physical and mental health programs to homeless and underhoused individuals in the southeast core of Toronto. Street Health recently conducted an extensive study of the health status and needs of homeless adults in downtown Toronto. This study actively involved peer researchers and included two Photovoice projects.

Toronto Community-Based Research Network
www.torontocbr.ca
The mission of the Toronto CBR Network is to increase and sustain the capacity of local health and social service organizations and academic partners in the GTA to conduct effective Community-Based Research leading to evidence-based action and policy change . The Network is a vehicle to facilitate networking, collaboration, learning and action among community practitioners, academics, funders and community members from across the GTA who are or have been involved in CBR projects. In 2008, the network coordinated an Environmental Scan of research by community-based organizations within the Toronto Central LHIN (with an emphasis on CBR).

The Wellesley Institute
http://wellesleyinstitute.com/research/overview
Research at the Wellesley Institute is focused on reducing health inequities and improving the health of economically and socially disadvantaged urban populations. Current research priorities are in housing and homelessness, social exclusion, health care reform, income inequalities, and building capacity in the non-profit service sector. Wellesley commissions research projects, and also support community-based research through their enabling and advanced grants programs.

Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre
http://www.whiwh.com/index.php?mid=10&smid=0&ssmid=0
Women's Health in Women's Hands Community Health Centre is a pro-choice, anti-racist, multilingual, participatory community health centre for women of diverse backgrounds in Metropolitan Toronto and surrounding municipalities. WHIWH has conducted several participatory research projects focusing on the health of immigrant and racialized women.

CBR in Canada

A Snapshot of CBR in Canada (report pdf)
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/CBR%20snapshot%20report%20final.pdf

Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network
http://www.caan.ca/english/home.htm

Centre for Community-Based Research
http://www.communitybasedresearch.ca/
CCBR is an independent, non-profit organization located in Kitchener, Ontario. Founded in 1982, CCBR believes in the power of knowledge to impact positive social change. Their approach to research is participatory and action-oriented in a way that mobilizes people to participate as full and equal members of society.

University of Victoria – Office of Community-Based Research
http://www.uvic.ca/research/ocbr/index.html

CBR Research Methods / Training Resources

Developing and Sustaining CBPR Partnerships: A Skill-Building Curriculum http://www.cbprcurriculum.info
This evidence-based curriculum is intended as a tool for community-institutional partnerships that are using or planning to use a CBPR approach to improving health. Each of the 7 units in the curriculum includes:

  • Learning objectives
  • In-depth content information about the topic(s) being presented
  • Examples & interactive exercises designed to trigger discussion and help better understand the concepts being presented
  • Citations and suggested resources

Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network – CBR Resources
http://www.caan.ca/english/resources.htm
CAAN has developed a number of publications and fact sheets on topics such as designing research questions, setting up CBR research teams, negotiating ethical agreements and principals of research collaboration.

Community Campus Partnerships for Health
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/commbas.html
On this site you will find dozens of links to resources, tools, articles, and discussion groups related to community-based participatory research with an emphasis on health.

Inclusion Research Handook
http://www.owhn.on.ca/inclusionhandbook.htm
Developed by the Ontario Women's Health Network, this Handbook discusses the background of Inclusion Research and provides a guide to conducting this form of community-based research. This tool includes an Inclusion Researcher training program manual and sample forms, documents and handouts.

The Praxis Project
http://www.thepraxisproject.org/
The Praxis Project is an American nonprofit organization that builds partnerships with local groups to influence policymaking to address the underlying, systemic causes of community problems and to close the health gap facing communities of colour. The web site contains a number of useful tools and resources to support advocacy work.

Wellesley Institute CBR Workshop Materials
http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/presentations/cbr_100_series/
The Wellesley Institute has made a variety of community-based research (CBR) and capacity-building workshop materials  available for public use. The CBR and capacity-building program was offered for Toronto area researchers over a number of years.  Over twenty workshops were delivered on topics spanning both the conceptual (e.g., ethics, theories in health promotion, methods, etc.) and practical aspects of CBR and capacity-building (e.g., how to conduct a literature review, how to run a focus group, how to analyze data, etc.). The workshops are available free for download.

Conducting CBR with Newcomers and Racialized Groups

Survey of Community Based Research on Ethnoracial Health Disparities (pdf)
http://healthequitycouncil.ca/dev/media/attachments/Ethnoracial_CBR_Survey_Results_Report.pdf
This document summarizes the results of a survey on community-based research (CBR) related to ethno-racial health disparities, conducted by the Health Equity Council (HEC).

Ethics in Community-University Partnerships Involving Racial Minorities: An Anti-Racism Standpoint in Community-Based Participatory Research
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/PP-W07-Gregoire.pdf
This article argues for the use of an anti-racism research methodology within CBPR in order to address the exclusion of racial minority communities. Written by Hélène Grégoire (formerly of Access Alliance) and June Ying Yee (of Ryerson University).

Community-based Research on Immigrant Women: Contributions and Challenges
http://ceris.metropolis.net/Virtual%20Library/community/2004%20CWPs/CWP32_Sherkin1.pdf
Examines issues related to CBR with newcomer women in Canada.

Considerations for Community-Based Research With African Women
(free journal article download)
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/92/4/561
This article addresses the need for more advanced consideration of the impact of race, gender, and class is needed for health disparity research involving women of color. Research processes must permit the simultaneous disclosures of the racial, gender, and class identities among women of color that are assumed and imposed.

Improving collaboration between researchers and communities
(free journal article download)
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=10968762
To capture the perspectives of inner-city Seattle communities about issues in community-researcher partnerships, Seattle Partners for Healthy Communities conducted interviews with community members from ethnically diverse neighborhoods of Seattle. The results suggest that effective community-researcher collaborations require a paradigm shift from traditional practices to an approach that involves: acknowledging community contributions, recruiting and training minority people to participate in research teams, improving communication, sharing power, and valuing respect and diversity.

New Routes: Using stories to improve immigrant health
http://newroutes.org
Immigrant organizations and media makers (in the United States) have formed partnerships to improve the health of immigrants by making media that best suits their needs.

Social Determinants of Health for Newcomers and Racialized Groups

Closing the Gap – Solutions to Race-Based Health Disparities
http://www.thepraxisproject.org/tools/ClosingGap.pdf
This report examines causes and solutions of race-based health disparities in the United States. Much of the report discusses barriers to accessing healthcare services. There are also sections on structural determinants of health and community-based approaches to reducing health disparities (PDF format, 2.15 Mb).

Colour of Poverty
http://www.colourofpoverty.ca/
The Colour of Poverty Campaign is a province-wide community-based effort to help raise public awareness about the serious problem of poverty within the racialized communities of Ontario. With the Department of Canadian Heritage as a key sponsor, the Colour of Poverty Campaign partners have developed a series of ten Fact Sheets addressing different aspects of racialized poverty and its negative impacts on education & learning, health & well-being, employment, income levels, justice and policing, immigration and settlement, housing and homelessness and food security in Ontario.

Immigrant Settlement and Social Inclusion in Canada
http://maytree.com/PDF_Files/SummaryImmigrantSettlementAndSocialInclusion2003.pdf
A brief introduction to immigrant settlement in Canada and the barriers to inclusion facing new immigrants to Canada (PDF, 1.35 Mb).

Metropolis / CERIS
http://canada.metropolis.net/index_e.html
http://ceris.metropolis.net/frameset_e.html

Racism as a Determinant of Health: The Impact of Racism on the Health of Young Women of Color
http://www.crr.ca/divers-files/en/pub/rep/ePubRepRacDiscYouth.pdf
The specific objectives of this participatory action-research were to utilize the perspectives of young women of colour and anti-racist practitioners to determine the improvements that need to be made in the provision of anti-racist health care for racial minority female youth. The second objective is to design and implement concrete initiatives to fulfill these identified improvements in a range of healthcare settings including both community health centres and mainstream hospital settings.

Refusing to Settle For Less: Public Policy Recommendations to Incrase Access to Fair and Meaningful Employment for Newcomers
In 2009, the Mennonite New Life Centre partnered with newcomers on a participatory action research project to document newcomer employment experiences and ideas for policy change. Among the key recommendations offered by newcomer research participants were: economic incentives for employers to create jobs for newcomers and new legislation to require and enforce fair and equitable hiring practices.

Social Inclusion as a Determinant of Health
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ph-sp/oi-ar/03_inclusion-eng.php
This article provides an overview of those aspects of social exclusion that affect the health of racialized groups and new immigrants in Canada.

Taking Culture Seriously in Community Mental Health
http://www.communitybasedresearch.ca/takingcultureseriouslyCURA//front_page.html
This objective of this Community-University Research Alliance is to explore, develop, pilot and evaluate how best to provide community-based mental health services and supports that will be effective for people from culturally diverse backgrounds. The research is intended to have relevance for the range of cultural-linguistic diversity within multicultural Canada.

Multilingual Resources

Caja de Herramientas Comunitarias
http://ctb.ku.edu/es/

Other Resources

CBPR Resources Website
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/commbas.html

The Community-Based Participatory Research Resources Website is maintained by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health and includes the following sorts of information:

  • Principles and policies
  • Reports and presentations
  • Opportunities for funding, training and technical assistance
  • CBPR course syllabi
  • Links to related organizations and initiatives

Community Tool Box
http://ctb.ku.edu
The Community Tool Box is the world's largest resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. It offers over 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement.
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