Major Findings of Evaluation

The CBCRP CRC Awards have succeeded in getting research funds into communities affected by breast cancer and empowering these communities to participate as full partners in the research process. Including affected communities in the research process has added to the research milieu questions for study that might not have been considered. Because collaborative research can be time-consuming and complex for both the community and traditional research partners, we recommend improvements that will strengthen the awards and support the development of research collaborations.

Successes:

We identified successes within both the concept and implementation of participatory community-academic research collaboration.

  1. The CBCRP CRC Awards have given communities of women affected by breast cancer the power to formulate and initiate research projects addressing questions of concern to them. The majority of the community collaborators were breast cancer survivors.

  2. The program also supported research with populations not often so included such as women who are:

    1. disabled,
    2. rural,
    3. lesbians,
    4. of Samoan heritage,
    5. of Korean heritage,

    6. of Hmong heritage.

  3. The CBCRP supported several studies through re-writes and re-application. This is a much needed service component when introducing non-research communities into the research milieu.

  4. The CBCRP has facilitated relationships between community groups and some of the most committed, community-sensitive academic researchers in California The researchers' choices of research questions, methods, and implementation made clear the importance of the collaborations.

“We had a 99% follow-up rate. That is unheard of in research. The community partners were apologizing that they lost one woman to follow-up. We were teasing them that it was a good thing that they lost one woman or no one would have believed the study was for real”

Academic Collaborator

Areas for Improvement:

Our evaluation also identified barriers to application and research implementation that the CBCRP should address to ensure successful awards. These include:

  1. The CBCRP needs to take the initiative in communicating with community groups. Community groups are at a distinct disadvantage when trying to understand the policies and procedures of a research funding institution. In the studies the CBCRP funded, community groups were not able to consistently participate as truly equal partners. The CBCRP should take the initiative to increase communication with the funded partnerships and create opportunities for the CRCs to learn from each other.

  2. Funding limits and delays, as well as the timing of applications and awards, make continuity difficult for the community-academic collaborations. Research partners have to expend energy that could be better used on the collaborative research trying to fill funding gaps and ensure data completion for future grant applications.

  3. Funding service delivery during or after the awards, would support the community agency's involvement in the research study and ensure a continuity of services to clients.