Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Theory and Practice of Community-​Based Research in Public Health

Course Description

This is a survey course on the philosophy, theory, and practice of community-based research (CBR) in public health that has an explicit social justice agenda. The course employs readings and audiovisual resources about community-based research. The definitions, ethics, methodologies, and types of community participation in CBR are examined at the start of the course. The course focuses on key aspects of community based research such as anti-oppressive practices, ethics, intersectionality and inclusion in research methods and activities, CBR with marginalized communities, quantitative participatory research, the practice of CBR proposal writing, arts-based CBR and Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) in CBR. It includes in-class hands-on activities that provide key aspects of CBR such as managing work groups, workshops, presenting in multimodal media to stakeholders (KTE, KMb, anti-oppressive, non-institutionalized pedagogies, etc.)

Course Objectives

The overall course learning objectives are:

1. To understand the theory and practice of Community-Based Research (CBR) in the context of public health.
2. To provide opportunities to acquire critical and anti-oppressive perspectives on research partnerships, design, funding, and evaluation.
3. To apply the student’s emerging learning on CBR with the practice of building a targeted Knowledge Mobilization (KTE) product.

Methods of Assessment

Assignment #1 – Outline of an academic paper or a CRB research proposal	15%
Assignment #2 – Draft of a Knowledge Mobilization Product	15%
Assignment #3 – Final Knowledge Mobilization Product	35%
Assignment #4 – Individual Final Essay	35%
One page reflection on your learning when preparing the assignments	Not graded