Community Based Research Activities for AIDS Control

Abstract

This article reports on a study into the extent to which individual participation in community participatory research actions on HIV.  In this research, cultural compromise analysis was used in an exploratory manner to measure the level of agreement among participants prior to and immediately following contribution in community participatory workshops. The results demonstrate changeability by community and gender in the levels of consensus, or agreement, achieved through the workshops. These findings suggest that consensus is not an automatic outcome of participation in small group interventions and in some cases can result in less agreement on community issues around HIV. Also discussed is the potential utility of cultural consensus analysis as a tool in evaluating the effectiveness of community participatory interventions.