Community-based research is a whole new set of rules, guidelines, and practices that I never had to deal with in the past. Previously, it was easy. I screened and enrolled eligible participants and scheduled study visits that fit with their schedule. It was a role that required many different hats with one of them being a big brother. Basically, if they had to cancel or didn’t show up then it was on me to reschedule the visit; however, they were always coming to me, I was never going to them. Community-based research is a little different, a little bit more of a juggling act. It is the alignment of not only the participants’ schedule with study visits but study visit availability with your schedule. It requires you to build trust not only with community-based partners but with the individual participants, especially if study visits occur in their home. Additionally, it requires understanding and compassion beyond anything I have ever experienced. The rapport that you build with these individual participants paves the way for all future research that you (or someone else) may conduct. Pressure, I know.
Regardless of all of these different skills (technical and critical thinking) that need to be picked up and dusted off, community-based research is extremely rewarding. It is an opportunity to give back to a community by providing them with new and exciting tools (or resources) that will hopefully improve their health. It’s engaging in regularly scheduled conversations, something that we have strayed form as a species but is vital for our survival. It’s about seeing these individuals as human beings and not just as participants or study subjects. Community-based research knocks down numerous doors (both literally and figuratively) which puts us (the researcher) completely out of our element.
As future researchers we are taught specific research procedures, encouraged to use certain terminology, and trained to act a particular way with research participants. However, everything that we were previously (or are currently being) taught sort of goes out the window with community-based research. Research procedures now include taking off your shoes as you enter their home, interactions and conversations are with the entire family, and visits are interrupted multiple times with normal day-to-day activities. Being invited into someone’s home almost instantly makes the relationship a little bit more personal, a little different. I witness their day-to-day life firsthand as we are completing visits. This is in stark contrast to a scheduled study visit at a clinic or in a laboratory. With these visits, we are getting a specific version of that participant, usually their best version. With community-based research, entering someone’s home allows you to see through a particular version of them that they may portray if in a different environment. We have stepped into their comfort zone, their judge free area, their safe space, and we have to be careful.
Conducting community-based research has changed my perspective completely. It has reminded me that in order to help individuals improve their health, we (researchers) need to understand them as people first. There’s no better way to do that than to completely embed ourselves in their lives, which community-based research forces us to do. Throughout this past year, I have never been more uncomfortable with the research process. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone and into someone else’s. I have not been allowed to hide behind fancy buildings, high-tech equipment, or scripted conversations. Community-based research has reminded me why we do research in the first place – to help others. Because when all is said and done, that data point or laboratory value was from a person, an individual that has feelings, emotions, and dreams. I won’t ever forget that and I hope that you will be more inclined to remember the people behind the data as well.