CBPR in Indian country: tensions and implications for health communication.

There is a common perspective among public health researchers and community members that although health promotion or disease prevention practices, programs, and projects should be done with rather than to individuals and communities, for various practical, economic, political, and cultural reasons, this is easier said than done. This study examines community-based participatory research (CBPR) in a university-based research center conducting health promotion and disease prevention research in Indian Country. This article reviews the tensions between CBPR ideologies, its practical application in Indian Country, and the impact of this theory/practice dialectic on the ability to conduct health promotion and disease prevention research. It concludes that far from empowering individuals and communities, status quo research in Indian Country perpetuates a type of "clientism" that reinforces researcher/researched relationships.