The Michigan Center for the Environment & Children's Health adheres to the following Community-Based Public Health Research Principles, which were adopted by the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Reseach Center (URC) in 1996.

1. Community-based research projects need to be consistent with the overall objectives of the Michigan Center for the Environment and Children's Health (MCECH).  These objectives include an emphasis on the local relevance of public health problems and an examination of the social, economic, and cultural conditions that influence health status and the ways in which these affect life-style, behavior, and community decision-making.



2. The purpose of community-based research projects is to enhance our understanding of issues affecting the community and to develop, implement and evaluate, as appropriate, plans of action that will address those issues in ways that benefit the community.



3. Community-based research projects are designed in ways which enhance the capacity of the community-based participants in the process.



4. Representatives of community-based organizations, public health agencies, health care organizations, and educational institutions are involved as appropriate in all major phases of the research process, e.g., defining the problem, developing the data collection plan, gathering data, using the results, interpreting, sharing and disseminating the results, and developing, implementing and evaluating plans of action to address the issues identified by the research.



5. Community-based research is conducted in a way that strengthens collaboration among community-based organizations, public health agencies, health care organizations, and educational institutions.



6. Community-based research projects produce, interpret and disseminate the findings to community members in clear language respectful to the community and in ways which will be useful for developing plans that will benefit the community.



7. Community-based research projects are conducted according to the norms of partnership: mutual respect; recognition of the knowledge, expertise, and resource capacities of the participants in the process; and open communication.



8. Community-based research projects follow the policies set forth by the sponsoring organization regarding ownership of the data and output of the research (policies to be shared with participants in advance.  Any publications resulting from the research will acknowledge the contribution of participants, who will be consulted with prior to submission of materials and, as appropriate, will be invited to collaborate as co-authors.  In addition, following the rules of confidentiality of data and the procedures referred to below (Item #9), participants will jointly agree on who has access to the research data and where the data will be physically located.



9. Community-based research projects adhere to the human subjects review process standards and procedures as set forth by the sponsoring organization; for example, for the University of Michigan these procedures are found in the Report of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, entitled "Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research" (the "Belmont Report").

The Community-Based Public Health Research Principles were originally developed by the Detroit-Genesee County Community-Based Public Health Initiative and published in an article entitled "Development and Implementation of Principles for Community-Based Research in Public Health, Journal of Community Practice, Schulz, AJ, Israel, BA, Selig, S, and Bayer, I. 1997.

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© 2003 The Regents of the University of Michigan
Updated January 02, 2003