We’re excited to announce that our ARISE colleague Wafa Alam, from BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health in Bangladesh, will be attending the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC 2024) later this month. Taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 22 to 27 January, this international conference focuses on geopolitics, human security and health equity in an era of polycrises.

Wafa will be presenting two posters from ARISE at the international health conference in Thailand:

Decolonising knowledge production to support equitable community research partnerships: Participatory approaches with the ARISE consortium

Co-production requires dismantling existing power hierarchies. As such, it can support decolonising knowledge generation and fostering inclusive and equitable relationships with diverse (and at times) marginalised actors participating in health governance, research and decision-making. Decolonising knowledge production recognises that expertise lies with those communities directly affected by health inequities and challenges as well as other key actors.

ARISE uses community based participatory research (CBPR) to build the capacities of urban marginalised people to generate contextually grounded evidence to incite action and strengthen relationships with governance actors. In this poster, prepared for the Prince Mahidol Award Conference we demonstrate the range of participatory methods used by ARISE. Fostering equitable research partnerships requires an openness to learn from communities, and a foundation of humility, trust and respect.

What does it take for success? Seven competencies to enhance the quality of community-based co-production research partnerships for health

Decolonising health research requires a shift to inclusive processes, and actively engaging with communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) fosters collaboration among communities, researchers, and implementers to produce contextual knowledge for action. Enhancing co-production skills and competencies has been shown to improve research quality and validity, while CBPR principles have been developed, limited guidance exists on the skills needed to adhere to these. There is a need for frameworks to guide equitable and meaningful contributions from both community and external partners. This poster, prepared for the Prince Mahidol Award Conference, explores the competencies necessary to foster high quality research partnerships with community-based organisations and co-researchers.

We’re really excited about this opportunity to share our work with an international audience, and meet like minded colleagues from different contexts. See you there!