Perspectives of Community Advisory Board Members in a Community-Academic Partnership

Background. Community-academic partnerships are increasingly used to engage community members and researchers in research activities; however, little is known about the motivations and perceptions of community members to participate in such projects. Objectives. The overall goal was to elicit Community Advisory Board (CAB) members' motivations and perceptions of involvement in a community-academic partnership about cancer prevention. Methods. An external evaluator conducted 15 one-on-one semi-structured interviews with CAB members of the project. Coders conducted a conventional content analysis to derive themes from the interview data. Results. Emergent themes were grouped into four categories: CAB members' 1) motivation to participate in the project, 2) perceptions that they had insider information, 3) views of roles and responsibilities in project planning and implementation, and 4) challenges and suggestions to improve the community-academic relationship. Conclusions. This study found substantial evidence that CAB members perceived they were working to involve the Hispanic community in health promotion.