Community-based participatory research: Advancing integrated behavioral health care through novel partnerships

The call for interdisciplinary collaboration in health care is longstanding, and our collective efforts to answer this across mental health and biomedical care and training sites are evolving faster today than ever before. As we do this, it is important to recognize the lived experience, wisdom, and energy of the patients, families, and communities that we serve—and that we, as professionals, advance our effort(s) in a manner that honors this insight. In this chapter, we describe community-based participatory research (CBPR) as a way of partnering professionals with lay communities to work together to create health initiatives that neither group, respectively, could create by itself. We highlight core tenets that guide CBPR and, drawing from our own and others' work, share important lessons learned. We discuss data collection and analysis (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods designs), and offer suggestions and guidance regarding education and training for those interested in learning more about partnering and working with communities in CBPR.