ATECAR: An Asian American community-based participatory research model on tobacco and cancer control.

In the past few decades, community-based participatory research, which underscores the indispensable role of the community in all phases of the research process, has been recognized as a viable approach to working constructively with communities to achieve mutually beneficial goals. This article presents a history of the Asian Tobacco Education, Cancer Awareness and Research's pioneering efforts in conducting community-based participatory research among Asian Americans in the Delaware Valley region of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Information about project background, target populations, and the rationale for the conduct of community-based participatory research in American communities is provided. It also delineates the manner in which the principles of community-based participatory research were applied as guides for the development of partnership infrastructures, research programs, and the challenges and barriers that were encountered. Facilitating factors in partnership building, and implications of employing this model in this ethnically and racially diverse population, are further discussed.