Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on August 18, 2005
Health Education Research 2006 21(2):175-180; doi:10.1093/her/cyh051
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Quality of research on community partnerships: developing the evidence base
1 Postgraduate Public Health Programme, School of Health and Social Care, Oxford Brookes University, Jack Straws Lane, Marston Road, Oxford OX3 0FL, UK and
2 Department of Psychiatry, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA
*Correspondence to: W. El Ansari. E-mail: walid.ansari{at}brookes.ac.uk
Recent years have witnessed broad public health transformations. Central to these changes is that partnership work is increasingly mandated and employed as a vehicle for health education and promotion and disease prevention. Such efforts involve partnerships that span National Health Service bodies, local authorities and health and social care organizations, with stakeholders from the public, private, voluntary and community sectors. However, a more adequate evidence base is required to guide policy and action. The aims of this paper are to draw attention to some of the issues that have hampered the quality of partnership research and to discuss ways in which this research can be improved, in an effort to encourage the development of a more valuable evidence base for researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Multimethod approaches to research on partnership context, functioning and outcomes are advocated, and policy recommendations are made.