Maintaining Internal Validity in Community Partnered Participatory Research: Experience from the Community Partners in Care Study

Abstract

Objective: With internal validity being a central goal of designed experiments, we seek to elucidate how community partnered participatory research (CPPR) impacts the internal validity of public health compara­tive-effectiveness research.Methods: Community Partners in Care (CPIC), a study comparing a community-coalition intervention to direct technical as­sistance for disseminating depression care to vulnerable populations, is used to illustrate design choices developed with attention to core CPPR principles. The study-design process is reviewed retrospectively and evaluated based on the resulting covariate balance across intervention arms and on broader peer-review assessments. Contribu­tions of the CPIC Council and the study’s design committee are highlighted.Results: CPPR principles contributed to building consensus around the use of randomization, creating a sampling frame, specifying geographic boundaries delimit­ing the scope of the investigation, grouping similar programs into pairs or other small blocks of units, collaboratively choosing random-number-generator seeds to deter­mine randomized intervention assignments, and addressing logistical constraints in field operations. Study protocols yielded samples that were well-balanced on background characteristics across intervention arms. CPIC has been recognized for scientific merit, has drawn attention from policy­makers, and has fueled ongoing research collaborations.Conclusions: Creative and collaborative fulfillment of CPPR principles reinforced the internal validity of CPIC, strengthening the study’s scientific rigor by engaging comple­mentary areas of knowledge and expertise among members of the investigative team.Ethn Dis. 2018;28(Suppl 2):357-364; doi:10.18865/ed.28.S2.357.