| Course | MPH 509 Community-Based Participatory Research |
|---|---|
| Week | 4 |
| Paper type | CBPR literature review |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MPH 509 Week 4
Literature Review: How Participatory Is Participatory Research on Drinking Water and Housing Environments? A Test of When the Community Entered, Applied to the Evidence
Student Name
Chamberlain University
MPH 509: Community-Based Participatory Research
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Literature Review: How Participatory Is Participatory Research on Drinking Water and Housing Environments? A Test of When the Community Entered, Applied to the Evidence
Purpose and Approach
This review asks what participatory research can contribute to a study of drinking water in Cedar Grove, where a park-owned water system has had repeated boil-water notices. The label participatory is applied loosely in the literature, so the review does not accept it at face value. It develops a test and applies it to each source, then groups the sources by how deeply the community took part rather than by health topic.
A Test for Real Partnership
The test asks at which phases the community held real decision-making power: defining the question, designing methods, collecting data, interpreting results and deciding on dissemination and action. It draws on Israel et al.'s (1998) principles, which treat partnership across all phases as the defining feature of community-based participatory research, and on Cargo and Mercer's (2008) point that participation varies by phase and that reports often describe consultation as partnership. A study passes the test if the community entered at the question stage and held decision power in at least three phases. It partly passes if the community entered at data collection or later, or held only advisory roles. It fails if community members served only as participants or recruiters.
The Broad Evidence on Participatory Research
Two reviews frame what participatory research can achieve and how often it falls short. Chen et al. (2010) reviewed 101 studies published between 2005 and 2009 that described themselves as community-based participatory research, scoring the quality of community involvement on a 3-point scale; the mean was 2.3, and dissemination beyond scientific publication was reported in only 48% of articles, though most authors said in a survey that they had shared results with communities. This suggests that published reports understate some forms of partnership while the label overstates others. Jagosh et al. (2012) reviewed 23 partnerships through 276 publications and found that genuine partnership tended to produce research better fitted to its setting, stronger recruitment, new capacity among partners, productive conflict and sustained activity beyond funding, but that none of these benefits was guaranteed and all depended on context.
Wallerstein and Duran (2010) argue that participatory research is particularly valuable for intervention research in communities facing inequities, because community partners help ensure that interventions fit local conditions and are sustained. Their argument is strongest for the question and design phases, which the test treats as the clearest marks of partnership.
Grouped by Depth: Deep Partnership
Minkler et al. (2008) examined four partnerships that studied environmental health problems, including air quality and industrial pollution, and worked toward policy change in New York, California, Oklahoma and North Carolina. In these cases, community organizations helped define the problem, collected data and led advocacy, and the partnerships contributed to policy outcomes. The study passes the test: community partners entered at the question stage and held power across most phases. It also shows something useful for Cedar Grove: community and partnership capacity, such as leadership, resources and networks, shaped what each partnership could achieve.
Grouped by Depth: Communities as Subjects
Much of what is known about water in manufactured home communities comes from research in which residents were subjects or sources rather than partners. Pierce and Gonzalez (2017) drew on administrative data and more than 1,300 news reports to show that California's mobile home parks are as likely as other housing to be served by regulated systems, but far more likely to be served by small ones, which are prone to health-related violations. Pierce et al. (2018) examined the zoning, location and public services of mobile home parks across Los Angeles County, asking whether parks are improperly zoned, pushed to the margins of the region and poorly served. Both studies are valuable and rigorous, but they fail the participation test by design: residents did not define the questions or interpret findings. They describe the problem; they do not show what residents themselves would study.
Balazs and Ray (2014) developed a framework explaining how drinking water disparities arise and persist, through natural, built and sociopolitical factors, from work in California's agricultural communities. Their framework is useful for the Cedar Grove study, but the article does not report a participatory process for its development, so it is classed here as conceptual rather than participatory.
Table 1
Sources Grouped by Depth of Community Participation
| Source | Community entered at | Phases with community decision power | Test result | Use for Cedar Grove |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minkler et al. (2008) | Question | Question, data, action | Passes | Capacity and policy pathway |
| Jagosh et al. (2012) | Varies across 23 partnerships | Varies | Review of partnerships | Benefits and their conditions |
| Chen et al. (2010) | Varies across 101 studies | Mean involvement 2.3 of 3 | Review of studies | Dissemination gap |
| Pierce and Gonzalez (2017) | Not involved | None | Fails | Scale of small-system problems |
| Pierce et al. (2018) | Not involved | None | Fails | Land use and infrastructure |
| Balazs and Ray (2014) | Not reported | Not reported | Conceptual | Causes of water disparities |
Note. Note. Test applied by the writer using criteria from Israel et al. (1998) and Cargo and Mercer (2008).
What Partnership Produced
Where partnership was deep, it produced things conventional studies did not: research questions grounded in residents' priorities, data that only residents could gather, such as logs of outages and costs, and a route from findings to action through community organizations already engaged in advocacy (Minkler et al., 2008). Jagosh et al. (2012) add that partnerships often outlived their funding, which matters for a community like Cedar Grove whose problems will not end when a grant does.
Where the Evidence Thins
The evidence thins precisely where Cedar Grove sits. No source reviewed reports a participatory study of drinking water in a manufactured home community, and the studies of these communities' water treat residents as subjects. The participatory evidence comes mainly from urban neighborhoods and industrial pollution, settings where residents usually own or rent from many landlords rather than from one owner who controls both their land and their water. That single-owner arrangement raises the risk of retaliation and the importance of protecting residents' data, which the broader literature addresses only in general terms. The Cedar Grove study would therefore contribute something the literature lacks, and its design should report its partnership process in enough detail for others to apply the same test.
References
Balazs, C. L., & Ray, I. (2014). The drinking water disparities framework: On the origins and persistence of inequities in exposure. American Journal of Public Health, 104(4), 603-611. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301664
Cargo, M., & Mercer, S. L. (2008). The value and challenges of participatory research: Strengthening its practice. Annual Review of Public Health, 29, 325-350. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.091307.083824
Chen, P. G., Diaz, N., Lucas, G., & Rosenthal, M. S. (2010). Dissemination of results in community-based participatory research. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 39(4), 372-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2010.05.021
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
Jagosh, J., Macaulay, A. C., Pluye, P., Salsberg, J., Bush, P. L., Henderson, J., Sirett, E., Wong, G., Cargo, M., Herbert, C. P., Seifer, S. D., Green, L. W., & Greenhalgh, T. (2012). Uncovering the benefits of participatory research: Implications of a realist review for health research and practice. The Milbank Quarterly, 90(2), 311-346. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2012.00665.x
Minkler, M., Vásquez, V. B., Tajik, M., & Petersen, D. (2008). Promoting environmental justice through community-based participatory research: The role of community and partnership capacity. Health Education & Behavior, 35(1), 119-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198106287692
Pierce, G., & Gonzalez, S. R. (2017). Public drinking water system coverage and its discontents: The prevalence and severity of water access problems in California's mobile home parks. Environmental Justice, 10(5), 168-173. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0006
Pierce, G., Gabbe, C., & Gonzalez, S. R. (2018). Improperly-zoned, spatially-marginalized, and poorly-served? An analysis of mobile home parks in Los Angeles County. Land Use Policy, 76, 178-185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.05.001
Wallerstein, N., & Duran, B. (2010). Community-based participatory research contributions to intervention research: The intersection of science and practice to improve health equity. American Journal of Public Health, 100(S1), S40-S46. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.184036
What the MPH 509 Week 4 assignment asks for
Week four asks you to review the literature relevant to your participatory study. Read skeptically, since many studies use the participatory label for limited consultation. Develop a test of real partnership, such as the research phases in which the community held decision power, and apply it to each source. Organize the review by depth of participation or by an argument, not by health topic or one paragraph per study. Report what partnership produced where it was real. Identify where the evidence thins for your setting and population. Use sources that bear on both the method and the health issue, and explain how the review shapes your own study's design.
Inside the MPH 509 Week 4 example
The review defines its test from Israel and colleagues and Cargo and Mercer: a study passes if the community entered at the question stage and held power in at least three phases. It reports Chen and colleagues' finding that dissemination beyond publication appeared in 48% of 101 studies, and the Jagosh realist review of 23 partnerships. Minkler and colleagues' four environmental justice partnerships pass the test. Studies of mobile home park water by Pierce and colleagues fail it by design, though they are rigorous, and the Balazs and Ray framework is classed as conceptual. A table shows each judgment, and the review concludes that no participatory study of water in such a community was found.
Where the points sit in the MPH 509 Week 4 rubric
The commonest loss in a CBPR review is the catalog: a paragraph per study, grouped by topic, with no criteria applied and no argument. A second is the label taken at face value, where any study calling itself participatory is treated as one. Reviews that report only benefits, ignoring the conditions under which partnership fails, also lose points. Sources that bear on the health issue but not the method, or the reverse, weaken relevance. Strong reviews define a test, apply it to each source, group by depth, show what partnership produced, name where evidence thins for the setting and connect the review to the design that follows.
Common MPH 509 Week 4 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Reviewing participatory research is harder than reviewing a clinical topic because the method itself is often reported vaguely. If you share your study topic and the sources you have found, we can help you build a test of partnership depth, apply it consistently and organize the review around an argument rather than a list. We can also help you find studies of your health issue that used participatory methods. The topic and every judgment in the review stay yours. If your instructor requires a minimum number of sources or a recency window, tell us, and the custom sample will meet it while keeping the test at its center. If a source's methods section is too thin to judge, we can help you say so in the table rather than guess.
Get a MPH-509 Week 4 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 4 instructions with the source requirements your section sets and your topic, and a custom example is written to those requirements and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. The searching and the reading remain yours to do.
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MPH 509 Week 4 questions, answered
How do I tell whether a study was really participatory?
Look at when the community entered and what they decided. A partnership formed after the question was set, the funding secured and the design fixed is an advisory arrangement whatever it is called. Authorship and data custody are the other two tells, and studies rarely report them unless the partnership was genuine, which is itself informative.
Should I include studies that were not really participatory?
Where they illustrate the gap between label and practice, yes, and doing so is often the most interesting part of the review. What matters is that you classify them accurately rather than counting them as evidence for the method. A review that distinguishes substantive partnership from consultation is doing the appraisal the assignment asks for.
What if the evidence is weak?
Report that. Participatory research is difficult to evaluate with conventional designs, sustained outcome data is scarce, and much of the literature is descriptive. Saying so and identifying what kind of study would strengthen the case reads as competent, while overstating an evidence base your instructor knows well does not.
Where can I find a free MPH 509 Week 4 sample paper?
You can read a full MPH 509 Week 4 literature review that tests participatory research on water and housing by when the community entered, on this page.
What test does the MPH 509 Week 4 sample apply?
Whether the community entered at the question stage and held decision power in at least three research phases.