Welcome

Working to understand health and health disparities through Community-Based Participatory Research

As both global and national trends in the public health arena shift attention away from simply treating disease toward understanding the factors that promote, sustain, and threaten health, research and intervention are increasingly focusing on the determinants of health and health disparities within individual communities. Community health is affected not only by the quality of the local healthcare system, but also by informal and inherently less controllable components, such as how members of the community view their health and how they see themselves with respect to the healthcare system. Fully understanding community health therefore requires working hand-in-hand with the members of the community, in addition to local nonprofits, healthcare providers, and health bureaus. The Community Health Research Group adopts the Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to investigating health and health disparities. CBPR emphasizes building an ongoing, collaborative relationship with the community to identify and address the health needs of the community. It leverages both the interdisciplinary expertise of the researchers and the life experiences of community members to improve health and reduce health disparities. This website provides additional information about CBPR, the Lehigh faculty involved in the research group, the proposed hires that will make this work possible, and links to additional resources and information.

Email us: commhealth at lehigh dot edu