Laying the Foundation – Individual, Community, and Systems-Level Impacts of the Community-Based Research Department
This report highlights the impacts of our Community-Based Research (CBR) Department’s activities on individuals, communities, and system-level policy changes. It provides a thorough examination of our commitment to our CBR framework, principles, and practices, including:
- Research we have conducted in the last 10 years;
- Research that catalyzed and used our CBR framework with academic partners;
- Research-like activities such as evaluation activities (both internal and external);
- Resources and toolkits developed; and
- Research training we led.
Community-based research (CBR) is an inclusive and democratic model of research in which the research agenda originates in or is urged by the community, the research engages the members of the community of interest to the fullest extent throughout the research journey (research design through knowledge mobilization), and the research findings are consulted with the community to positively change the community.
The CBR department at Access Alliance actively work towards a vision of equity in research. Our research seeks to better understands the root causes and social determinants of health inequities. We do this by engaging communities affected by these systemic inequities as co-producers of knowledge and agents of positive change.
This vision supports our mission of using CBR works to generate and translate evidence to inform health promotion for people, including immigrants, newcomers, and refugees made vulnerable by the system. We are dedicated to working with and for communities. Our research, intended to advance social inclusion and health equity, always starts in and ends back in the communities we serve.
Why this report matters
CBR has started to become more common in the Canadian research sector, though it still faces some challenges to enter the mainstream. The credibility of CBR in the eyes of academic researchers and funders remains a point of contention, as well as issues of funding. To counter this, our organization has developed numerous resources and trained countless researchers, earning recognition from mainstream institutions and global leaders. We continue to develop tools to make CBR more accessible to researchers of all backgrounds and use CBR in our research to showcase its potential for influencing system change.
We hope to strengthen the CBR framework at Access Alliance so that it can continue to contribute to system and policy changes to support equity-deserving people. By aligning with global CBR movements and leveraging our position as leaders in participatory health research, we hope that the department continues to drive systemic change through research and advocacy. We look forward to seeing how the department can use CBR to identify and address the needs of new and emerging communities while ensuring that our services remain responsive, equitable, and effective.