MPH 509 Week 3 Partnership Agreement Draft Example

Partnership Agreement Draft: The Cedar Grove Drinking Water Study, Setting Out Who Decides, Who Owns the Data, Who Publishes and What Happens When a Finding Is Unwelcome

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 509: Community-Based Participatory Research

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Partnership Agreement Draft: The Cedar Grove Drinking Water Study, Setting Out Who Decides, Who Owns the Data, Who Publishes and What Happens When a Finding Is Unwelcome

Parties and Purpose

This draft agreement is between the Cedar Grove Residents' Association, speaking for the park's households; the Delmar County Health Department's Environmental Health Division; and the Department of Public Health at the regional state university. Its purpose is to set out, before the study begins, decisions that would otherwise be made later by whichever party holds more power. Over 18 months, the study will examine residents' experience of the park's drinking water, including outages, boil-water notices, discolored water, illness and the cost of bottled water, and what residents would need to see before they drank it again.

Decision Rights, Itemized

A steering committee of six will govern the study: three members chosen by the association, one by the health department, one by the university and one by the advisory congregation. This follows the principle that partners share decisions in every phase of the research, not only in recruitment (Israel et al., 1998). Decisions are by consensus, and where consensus fails, by a vote in which the association's three members together can block any decision.

The committee decides: the research questions; the survey and interview content; the sampling plan; which water tests are run and at which taps; how results are interpreted; and what is released, when and to whom. The university decides alone only on laboratory methods for water testing and on statistical methods, which it will explain to the committee in plain terms before use. The health department decides alone only on any regulatory action, which the agreement does not restrict but which it will discuss with the committee before acting on study data.

Data Ownership and Location

All survey, interview and household water-test data belong to the association on behalf of residents. The university will hold the data on its secure server as a steward, under a data use agreement that allows use only for purposes the committee approves. Names and lot numbers will be stored separately from responses, and only two named university staff will hold the key. The county health department will receive data only in summary form, never at the household level, so that study participation cannot become the basis for code enforcement against a resident's home. Copies of all data will be given to the association at the end of the study, with the key destroyed unless residents choose otherwise.

Publication and Veto

No findings may be released, presented or submitted for publication without committee approval. The association may delay release by up to 90 days if it judges that timing would expose residents to retaliation, for example during a lease dispute. It may not prevent publication permanently, except of material that would identify a household. Authorship on academic papers will include at least one association member on every paper, with the order agreed by the committee before writing begins. Any community report will be released before or at the same time as any academic publication.

Findings That Are Unwelcome

Some findings may be unwelcome to one party. Water tests might show the water is safe, which would weaken residents' complaints; or interviews might show conflict among residents; or the health department's past enforcement might look inadequate. The parties agree that all findings will be reported, that the party affected will have 30 days to prepare a written response included with the release and that no party will alter the other parties' sections. Flicker et al. (2007) found that ethics review forms rarely anticipate these community-level dilemmas, which is why they are settled here.

Compensation as Work

Residents' time is work and will be paid, since partnerships that rely on unpaid community labor while agencies draw salaries reproduce the inequities they study (Minkler, 2005). Two association members will be employed as community research associates, paid at the same hourly rate the university gives its student research assistants, for 10 hours a week each over 18 months. Board members attending steering committee meetings will receive a stipend of $50 per meeting. Survey respondents will receive a $25 grocery card. Meeting costs, childcare during meetings and interpretation into Spanish will be paid from the study budget. The association will receive a fixed amount each year for its own administration.

Conflicts

Disagreements that the committee cannot resolve in two meetings will go to a mediator from the county's dispute resolution center, chosen jointly. The cost will be shared by the university and the health department.

How It Ends

The agreement ends at the end of the study period, 18 months after signature, or earlier if any party withdraws with 30 days' written notice. If the association withdraws, data collected so far remain the association's and may not be used by the other parties without its permission. If an agency withdraws, the remaining parties may continue. Within 60 days of the end, the university will return all data and the parties will hold a closing meeting to review what the partnership produced, using a short set of questions about shared decision making, trust and benefit agreed at the start.

Signatures

To be signed by the association's board president, the health department's director and the university department chair, after the association's members have reviewed the draft at a general meeting with Spanish interpretation.

Training and Support

Each party agrees to support the others' capacity. The university will train the two community research associates in survey interviewing, water sampling under chain-of-custody rules, data protection and basic analysis, in sessions of no more than three hours at times residents choose. The association will brief university and health department staff on the park's history, the rent dispute, the outage log and the norms of the community, including which households should be approached first and how. The health department will explain to the committee how small water systems are regulated, what its staff can and cannot require of the owner and how boil-water notices are issued and lifted. Training sessions will be paid for residents as work hours.

Review of the Agreement

The steering committee will review this agreement at six months and at twelve months, and any party may propose changes at any time. Changes require the same consensus rule as other decisions, with the association's members able to block. A plain-language one-page summary in English and Spanish will be posted in the park's community room so that any resident can see who decides what.

References

Flicker, S., Travers, R., Guta, A., McDonald, S., & Meagher, A. (2007). Ethical dilemmas in community-based participatory research: Recommendations for institutional review boards. Journal of Urban Health, 84(4), 478-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-007-9165-7

Israel, B. A., Schulz, A. J., Parker, E. A., & Becker, A. B. (1998). Review of community-based research: Assessing partnership approaches to improve public health. Annual Review of Public Health, 19, 173-202. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173

Minkler, M. (2005). Community-based research partnerships: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Urban Health, 82(2 Suppl. 2), ii3-ii12. https://doi.org/10.1093/jurban/jti034