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Background
Using a community–based participatory research (CBPR) approach, we describe the process of a first–time campus–community partnership between UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the Afghan Coalition in California.
Objectives: We reflect on lessons learned in cultivating a unique community health partnership to provide a preliminary understanding of how Afghan immigrant women view their breast health, and to determine and assess their barriers to breast cancer screening. This story will emphasize the importance and challenges of (1) negotiating equitable collaborative relationships, (2) recruitment and retention of participants by community members and ways to overcome cultural and language barriers, (3) training of community members, and (4) data dissemination.
Conclusion
Conducting meaningful community partnerships should be driven by a social justice agenda where community has control over the production of knowledge and engaged in all phases of research. There is also a need for transparency and mutual agreement around roles and responsibilities where researchers take on facilitative roles and do not attempt to control the research process.
These are the reflections of the first community/campus partnership between the Afghan Coalition of Alameda County, CA and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in an effort to provide a preliminary understanding of how Afghan women view their breast health. This was done through in–depth semi–structured interviews conducted with non–English speaking first–generation immigrant Afghan women above the age of 40. This narrative aims to describe the experience of engaging in community–academic partnerships that brought forth essential information pertaining to the breast health screening practices of Afghan women which then led to a five–year breast health education intervention program funded by the National Institute of Health.
My mother, my sister, my aunt, my daughter . . .
In telling their stories, the women were speaking about their struggles, their pain and resilience. They painted an accurate picture of breast cancer in their communities, which remained a subject considered taboo in Afghan culture. It was clear this was more than a “make sure everyone gets a pamphlet” intervention. No intervention was going to work unless it was a part of the community itself; not for them or about them or even from them. In a refugee community struggling against the label of terrorist as the United States entered its second...