Community-Based Participatory Research for Health

If Thomas Kuhn (1962) is correct, a field of inquiry develops in stages. Some members of a field of inquiry recognize anomalies in the foundational beliefs and seek better explanations of problems, such as health and economic disparities, and practices of inquiry about them. A few distinctive achievements or discoveries provide the new approaches greater legitimacy. Eventually, a critical mass of information and researchers develops and the alternative explanations and research practices offer canons of practice, which mark an advanced stage of the development of an emerging field of inquiry. This special issue of the Michigan Journal and Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein’s edited volume, Community-Based Participatory Research for Health, offer evidence that the field of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has reached an important developmental point as a field. The forthcoming Community-Based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices (Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohue, 2003); the recently published The Handbook of Action Research (Reason & Bradbury, 2001); and Ernest Stringer’s recent work (1999) and forthcoming work on participatory action research in higher education provide further evidence that we have exemplars of the methods of participatory research and canons for their practice, even if we cannot as yet agree on a single name. Whatever the nuances among the terms, there is coherence. We are talking about research that