▪ Abstract Community-based research in public health focuses on social, structural, and physical environmental inequities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. Partners contribute their expertise to enhance understanding of a given phenomenon and to integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. This review provides a synthesis of key principles of community-based research, examines its place within the context of different scientific paradigms, discusses rationales for its use, and explores major challenges and facilitating factors and their implications for conducting effective community-based research aimed at improving the public's health.

There have been increasing calls for community–academic partnerships to enhance the capacity of partners to engage in policy advocacy aimed at eliminating health disparities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a partnership approach that can facilitate capacity building and policy change through equitable engagement of diverse partners. Toward this end, the Detroit Community–Academic Urban Research Center, a long-standing CBPR partnership, has conducted a policy training project. We describe CBPR and its relevance to health disparities; the interface between CBPR, policy advocacy, and health disparities; the rationale for capacity building to foster policy advocacy; and the process and outcomes of our policy advocacy training. We discuss lessons learned and implications for CBPR and policy advocacy to eliminate health disparities.

Objectives. We evaluated the spatial accessibility of large “chain” supermarkets in relation to neighborhood racial composition and poverty. Methods. We used a geographic information system to measure Manhattan block distance to the nearest supermarket for 869 neighborhoods (census tracts) in metropolitan Detroit. We constructed moving average spatial regression models to adjust for spatial autocorrelation and to test for the effect of modification of percentage African American and percentage poor on distance to the nearest supermarket. Results. Distance to the nearest supermarket was similar among the least impoverished neighborhoods, regardless of racial composition. Among the most impoverished neighborhoods, however, neighborhoods in which African Americans resided were, on average, 1.1 miles further from the nearest supermarket than were White neighborhoods. Conclusions. Racial residential segregation disproportionately places African Americans in more-impoverished neighborhoods in Detroit and consequently reduces access to supermarkets. However, supermarkets have opened or remained open close to middle-income neighborhoods that have transitioned from White to African American. Development of economically disadvantaged African American neighborhoods is critical to effectively prevent diet-related diseases among this population.

Community-based participatory research in public health focuses on social, structural, and physical environmental inequities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. Partners contribute their expertise to enhance understanding of a given phenomenon and integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. This article presents key principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), discusses the rationale for its use, and provides a number of policy recommendations at the organizational, community and national levels aimed at advancing the application of CBPR. While the issues addressed here draw primarily upon experiences in the United States, the emphasis throughout this article on the establishment of policies to enhance equity that would serve both to increase the engagement of communities as partners in health research, and to reduce health disparities, has relevant applications in a global context.

In this article, the authors draw on the disciplines of sociology and environmental and social epidemiology to further understanding of mechanisms through which social factors contribute to disparate environmental exposures and health inequalities. They propose a conceptual framework for environmental health promotion that considers dynamic social processes through which social and environmental inequalities—and associated health disparities—are produced, reproduced, and potentially transformed. Using empirical evidence from the published literature, as well as their own practical experiences in conducting community-based participatory research in Detroit and Harlem, the authors examine health promotion interventions at various levels (community-wide, regional, and national) that aim to improve population health by addressing various aspects of social processes and/or physical environments. Finally, they recommend moving beyond environmental remediation strategies toward environmental health promotion efforts that are sustainable and explicitly designed to reduce social, environmental, and health inequalities.