Participatory action research publications in journal papers and reports

On this page you will find links to published journal papers and reports on and about PAR. The most recently published resources are shown first. Please send us your reports and journal paper links. If they are published papers that have been reviewed and finalised but are but not online let us know in the form you send and we will contact you in case we are able to upload them and make them available online.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) and the Colombian Peasant Reserve Zones: The Legacy of Orlando Fals Borda

https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/sites/default/files/article-pdfs/Gutie%CC%81rrez%20Focus22.pdf

Gutiérrez, J. Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review Issue 22 2016,2016

Fals Borda was a Colombian intellectual in the 1970s who became well known for helping give shape to the PAR approach in social sciences. While Colombia has become a conservative country and a staunch defender of the neoliberal creed, the peasantry has become the main actor of an important process of transformation, a central element of which are the Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRC). In the process of researching to implement these, researchers working with the agrarian unions and communities have come to use participatory methodologies which demonstrate the contemporary relevance of PAR.

Power and Glory: applying participatory action research in public health

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0213911116301194

Baum F: Gaceta Sanitaria 30(6) 405–407,2016

This article describes how PAR has been applied to public health, including in community asset mapping, participatory evaluation of public health programs, community monitoring of health service quality, research documenting and advocating to remove threats to health including poor water and sanitation and environmental pollution and participatory health policy research. A systematic review indicated most health service PAR has been conducted in low and middle income countries. The author observes that PAR holds great, and as yet largely unrealised promise, to support action on public health.

Investigación-Acción Participativa En Sistemas De Salud: Una Guía De Métodos

http://equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Spanish_PAR_Reader_March_2015_for_web.pdf

Loewenson R; Laurell AC; Hogstedt C; D’Ambruoso L; Shroff Z,2015

Esta Guía de metodos promueve la comprensión del término ‘investigación-acción participativa’ (IAP) y ofrece información sobre sus paradigmas, métodos y usos, particularmente en el ámbito de políticas y sistemas de salud. La Guía recoge experiencias y trabajos publicados de todas las regiones del mundo y explica: las caracaterísticas claves de la IAP así como la historia y los paradigmas de conocimiento que la informan; los procesos y métodos utilizados en la IAP, y asuntos de comunicación, informes, institucionalización y usos de la investigación-acción en política y sistema de salud.

Participatory action research in health systems: a methods reader

http://equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/PAR_Methods_Reader2014_for_web.pdf

Loewenson R; Laurell AC; Hogstedt C; D’Ambruoso L; Shroff Z,2014

The result of team work, this reader draws on experience and published work from all regions globally and explains: • key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it; • processes and methods used in participatory action research, including innovations and developments in the field and the ethical and methods issues in implementing it; and • communication, reporting, institutionalization and use of participatory action research in health systems.

Participatory Action Research: New Uses, New Contexts, New Challenges

https://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/prari/files/working_paper_6_en.pdf

Amaya, A.A; Yeates, N. Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration (PRARI) Working Paper 15-6,2014

This paper reviews why PAR is relevant for research uptake and impact agendas, and considers its opportunities, tensions, dilemmas and limits in impact contexts internationally, including where these involve ‘non-standard’ PAR populations. Participatory research raises a number of challenges -- professional, political, logistical. In addition, how PAR is applied in practice and the context of that practice bear significantly on the quality and nature of the research outcomes. The relationship between PAR and policy change as a research topic in its own right is also explored.

Women's groups practising participatory learning and action to improve maternal and newborn health in low-resource settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797417/

Prost A; Colbourn T; Seward N; et al.,2013

Different approaches for the improvement of birth outcomes have been used in community-based interventions, with heterogeneous effects on survival. The authors assessed the effects of women's groups practising participatory learning and action, compared with usual care, on birth outcomes in low-resource settings. With the participation of at least a third of pregnant women and adequate population coverage, women's groups practising participatory learning and action are a cost-effective strategy to improve maternal and neonatal survival in low-resource settings.

Community Health Workers Support Community-based Participatory Research Ethics: Lessons Learned along the Research-to-Practice-to-Community Continuum

http://muse.jhu.edu/article/488917/pdf

Smith S; Blumenthal D ,2012

This article examines experiences and lessons learned from involving community health workers in research enabling the the community to gain some degree of control over the research intervention and operationalizing ethical principles in community based participatory research.

De la invisibilidad de la situación de las policlínicascomunitarias-ruralesen Uruguay, a la priorización de la salud rural comopolíticapública (From the invisibility of the situation of rural and community health services in Uruguay towards the prioritiza

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/sdeb/v36n94/a14v36n94.pdf

Borgia F; Gularte A; Gabrielzyk I; Azambuja M; Soto J; Corneo M; Giménez H; Arraras M; González S ,2012

The paper justifies the progressive implementation incorporating providers of rural and community health services to generate action-proposals, for integration into the development of Comprehensive Primary Health Care through the use of Participatory-Action-Research and to contributed public policy.

Understanding participatory action research: A qualitative research methodology option

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274063607_Understanding_participatory_action_research_A_qualitative_research_methodology_option

MacDonald, C Canadian Journal of Action Research Volume 13, Issue 2, 2012,2012

This paper contextualizes PAR in terms of its history, principles, definitions, and strengths, as well as discuss challenges and practical suggestions for using PAR. In addition, it examines focus groups and interviews as methods for data collection, the role of PAR in education, and the types of research for which PAR is best suited.

‘Everyone is doing something and calling it PRA’ A Critical Reflection on Participatory Methods in Development

https://tinyurl.com/7j7wvfl

Parduhn, D. School of Global Studies, University of Sussex ,2011

The present paper argues that implementing participatory methods which go beyond consultation involves a wide range of difficulties. Even very careful implementation, which demands a range of skills and critical awareness of the identified problems, can not eliminate all of the issues raised. On the contrary, the mainstreaming of participation has in many instances counteracted its underlying ideals. However, cases of bad practice should not justify writing off the entire approach.