Ethical Challenges for the “Outside” Researcher in Community-Based Participatory Research

Although community-based participatory research (CBPR) shares many of the core values of health education and related fields, the outside researcher embracing this approach to inquiry frequently is confronted with thorny ethical challenges. Following a brief review of the conceptual and historical roots of CBPR, Kelly's ecological principles for community-based research and Jones's three-tiered framework for understanding racism are introduced as useful frameworks for helping explore several key challenges. These are (a) achieving a true "community-driven" agenda; (b) insider-outsider tensions; (c) real and perceived racism; (d) the limitations of "participation"; and (e) issues involving the sharing,…