title: Using community-based participatory research to prevent HIV disparities: assumptions and opportunities identified by the Latino partnership.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  HIV disproportionately affects vulnerable populations in the United States, including recently arrived immigrant Latinos. However, the current arsenal of effective approaches to increase adherence to risk-reduction strategies and treatment within Latino populations remains insufficient.
  
  
  METHODS
  Our community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership blends multiple perspectives of community members, organizational representatives, local business leaders, and academic researchers to explore and intervene on HIV risk within Latino populations. We used CBPR to develop, implement, and evaluate 2 interventions that were found to be efficacious.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified 7 assumptions of CBPR as an approach to research, including more authentic study designs, stronger measurement, and improved quality of knowledge gained; increased community capacity to tackle other health disparities; the need to focus on community priorities; increased participation and retention rates; more successful interventions; reduced generalizability; and increased sustainability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite the advancement of CBPR as an approach to research, key assumptions remain. Further research is needed to compare CBPR with other more-traditional approaches to research. Such research would move us from assuming the value of CBPR to identifying its actual value in health disparity reduction. After all, communities carrying a disproportionate burden of HIV, including immigrant Latino communities, deserve the best science possible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC 27157-1063, USA. srhodes@wakehealth.edu
authors.forename: Scott D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Rhodes
authors.forename: Stacy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duck
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alonzo
authors.forename: Jason Daniel-
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Ulloa
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Aronson
mesh_terms: D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D006678:HIV; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors