Section 2: This section will provide novice researchers with:

1. Strategies for pre-researching target communities to speed up the process of moving into the research design and methods.
2. Tools for creating partnerships vital to community-based participatory research (CBPR).
3. Access to an inventory of up-to-date literature summaries that describe research studies that have been conducted with various target communities.

Example of what you will find in this section:

By visiting the target community the implementation team can learn the following information:

1. Does a target community use “insider” terms? For example, injection drug users live within a unique cultural context. Would the implementation team know what “works” and a “shooting gallery” are? Can the team distinguish T-cell counts from viral loads? These are not only terms that are important to understand while studying a particular community, but these may also be terms that will be used in questionnaires.
2. Do structures within a resource network really offer the services or other resources they appear to offer? Service organizations are often very fluid, as funding sources are fluid. By attending meetings of resource networks, the team should be able to learn what organizations and programs offer what services.
3. Are there members of these communities who are gatekeepers? The team might need to go through some popular member, clan elder, or political leader that the collaborating stakeholders did not identify in order to access the community.
4. Is there an initial list of informants the team can gather through a meeting with the target community?
5. Are there sites where the community can be accessed in mass—sites not known by the collaborating stakeholders?
6. Are there certain rules the team needs to know about that community? Should one pay particular respect to the community’s elders? Does the team need to receive flu or pneumonia shots before approaching members of this group?
7. Will there be unexpected subpopulations of that community? Has the ethnic make-up of the community recently changed? Will this necessitate a bi-lingual interviewer or observer?
8. Are there special issues of confidentiality that need to be addressed? Are there children living with HIV who are unaware of their status? Will the team need access to undocumented immigrants?