Community-Based Participatory Research for Improved Mental Health

UAA's Sarah Dewane, Mark E. Johnson and Christiane Brems of the Center for Behavioral Health Research and Services (CBHRS) served as primary authors and evaluators of an online education course developed to teach researchers about community-based participatory research (CBPR). The course is now available through Terra Nova Learning Systems www.terranovalearning.com. Terra Nova received funding from the National Institute on Mental Health to develop and offer this course (and others). A research article describing this course and evaluation findings was published in the journal Ethics & Behavior in November 2009.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) focuses on specific community needs, and produces results that directly address those needs. Although conducting ethical CBPR is critical to its success, few academic programs include this training in their curricula. This research group's development and evaluation of an online training course is designed to increase the use of CBPR in mental health disciplines. Developed using a participatory approach involving a community of experts, the course challenges traditional research by introducing a collaborative process meant to encourage increased participation by special populations and narrow the parity gap in effective mental health treatment and services delivery.

For more information, contact Mark Johnson at (907) 561-2880 or afmej@uaa.alaska.edu.