Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States.
Soc Sci Med. 2011 Jul;73(1):145-52. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.04.029. Epub 2011 May 30.
Lay persons who are trained to conduct research in their own communities form an essential part of many research projects. However, the effects of conducting research in their own communities have not been adequately explored. This paper examines the experiences, perceptions, and challenges faced by a group of community researchers during their involvement in a research project that examined if, and how, the relationships between mothers and their adolescent daughters could be harnessed to develop a daughter-initiated cervical cancer intervention. Seven community researchers interviewed 157 mother-daughter pairs in Cape Town, South Africa. We examine the use of journaling as a tool to document the experiences of community researchers, and we consider how journaling may help the community-based researcher grapple with the research process, and, more broadly, what such journal content illustrates with respect to the nature and challenges of community-engaged health research. An analysis of the content of the journals provides a strong indication of how personal and intimate the research process can be for community researchers by virtue of the background that they bring into the process as well as the additional weight of the research process itself. The complexities of navigating dual and somewhat oppositional roles - the role of impartial scientist or researcher and the role of invested community person - has been both underestimated and insufficiently researched.
在许多研究项目中，经过培训能够在自己所在社区进行研究的外行人是不可或缺的一部分。然而，在自己所在社区进行研究的影响尚未得到充分探讨。本文考察了一群社区研究人员在参与一个研究项目时的经历、看法和所面临的挑战，该项目旨在研究母亲和青春期女儿之间的关系是否以及如何可以被利用来开发一种由女儿发起的宫颈癌干预措施。七名社区研究人员在南非开普敦采访了 157 对母女。我们考察了使用日记作为记录社区研究人员经历的工具，并考虑了日记如何帮助社区为基础的研究人员应对研究过程，更广泛地说，这种日记内容说明了社区参与式健康研究的性质和挑战。对日记内容的分析强烈表明，由于社区研究人员在研究过程中带来的背景以及研究过程本身的额外重要性，研究过程对他们来说是多么个人化和亲密。双重且有些对立的角色——公正的科学家或研究人员的角色和投入的社区人员的角色——的复杂性被低估了，而且研究也不够充分。
