Community-based participatory research with Latino community members:: Horizonte Latino

As the demographic makeup of the United States undergoes rapid transformation, the importance of studying ethnic and cultural variations between and within population subgroups becomes increasingly clear. Researchers must challenge themselves to move beyond simply matching their methodology to the research question at hand and seek out methods that are compatible with the culture, language, traditions, and particular life circumstances of the cultural group under study. Community-based participatory research is collaborative and includes community members as participants in the research process, which ensures the cultural and community specificity of the research. This article demonstrates how experiential learning of community members as research participants provided culturally grounded insights used in grant writing. The experiences and involvement of the community researchers shaped the research questions and provided the major conceptual basis in response to a National Institutes of Health Request for Applications.