Community-Based Participatory Research during COVID: Lessons Learned from a Rural Border Community Study

Overview: This presentation shares lessons learned from a multi-phased CBPR study conducted to explore unique service experiences of Latino immigrant families in the borderlands. CBPR implementation during COVID offers lessons in non-traditional, remote modalities of community engagement in research that are still in alignment with key CBPR principles.Proposal text: Background and

Purpose: Many “traditional” research approaches result in further marginalization and pathologization of vulnerable populations. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) offers a collaborative and inclusive approach to research that engages key community stakeholders as equal partners in all steps of the research process, and includes the community in efforts to improve the policies and practices that impact them. U.S. border communities feature complex immigration policies and dynamics, cultures, and languages, yet the experiences of immigrant families in these areas are very understudied. In March 2020, we embarked on a multi-phased CBPR study to explore unique service experiences of immigrant families in the borderlands and potential solutions/strategies to increase equity in service access for this underserved population.

Methods: We planned to utilize a CBPR approach beginning with in-person outreach, community meetings, and relationship building activities to design a study protocol that would uncover factors influencing immigrant families’ access to social services from the perspectives of community leaders and providers. As the study launched two weeks prior to widespread lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted to a virtual approach to the initial phase of community engagement and data collection. We used purposive and snowball sampling to recruit community agency leaders and local government officials to participate in Zoom semi-structured interviews. We built on connections forged through the interview process to identify 4 community agency partners as ongoing members of the research team, who then provided recommendations for additional community members to form an advisory group.

Results: We successfully convened a 12-member advisory group (e.g., social workers, educators, parents, community organizers, and religious leaders), with whom we met monthly via Zoom to co-interpret results from 23 semi-structured interviews with 9 local and state government officials and 14 community agency leaders, and to develop research questions and design for the following research phases. Strategies utilized to recruit and engage with community advisory members included: offering variable meeting days/times, including after business hours; providing up-front stipends as incentivization for team membership; using Zoom breakout rooms to hold conversations in English and Spanish depending on individual preferences; and communicating through various methods (e.g., email, text, phone, social media, Whatsapp). Virtual group meetings served multiple mutually beneficial purposes, including: get-to-know-you activities, general networking and information sharing, education on research methods and the study topic, and brainstorming on questions and solutions to identified issues. Through this method, we collaboratively designed and launched a county-wide survey targeting frontline workers of specific immigrant-serving agencies.

Conclusions and Implications: CBPR implementation during COVID offers lessons in non-traditional, remote modalities of community engagement in research that are still in alignment with key CBPR principles and that may be applicable during future, non-COVID times. The limitations of not being able to conduct face-to-face outreach and interaction challenged the processes of relationship and trust building, which are central to CBPR. However, technology offers many opportunities for continued engagement, while circumventing some common barriers to community member participation (e.g., transportation, travel time, etc.)