1.    Here are the three nominees for the Best Oral Presentation Award in our SIG! We are excited to have the opportunity to hear these presentations at the ISBNPA 2023 conference during the Wednesday afternoon session (be sure to keep a look out for the finalized conference program). Congratulations to all three nominees, and we wish you the best of luck in your presentations!

-       Alan Coffey (Technological University of The Shannon, Ireland) - The barriers and facilitators to reducing sedentarism amongst home-office employees: An employer’s perspective.

-       Pilar De Miguel-Etayo (University of Zaragoza, Spain) - Perspectives of Spanish children on drivers of their energy balance-related behaviors: ‘¡Chic@s en Acción!’

-   Tracey Kolbe-Alexander (University of Southern Queensland, Australia) - Toowoomba Healthy Towns: A citizen science initiative on active transport in Regional South-East Queensland, Australia 

2.    We have really enjoyed hosting our WE-binar series on participatory research over the last four months. We hope that you have also enjoyed participating in these sessions and learnt new ways to incorporate participatory methods into your own research. If you missed it, you can check out our first webinar on what participatory is and how it can benefit your project here.

Password: #1M7+Ab.

Scroll down to learn more about the lessons learned from our second webinar on the planning of participatory research.

The ISBNPA annual meeting is just a month and a half away!

We are so excited to meet many of you in Uppsala, Sweden. We will be holding our SIG business meeting on Thursday. To get some fresh air and see the sights, we will introduce the first ISBNPA walking business meeting! Be sure to keep an eye out on the conference program for details on the meeting time and the starting point of our walk.

This month, the Participatory Research SIG really enjoyed reading Manou Anselma and colleagues process evaluation of “Kids in Action”, a participatory action research study aimed to improve 9-12 year old children’s physical activity and dietary behaviour.

This is a nice look into how participating children experienced the collaborative process. If you’re thinking about using participatory (action) research with children and young people, this is definitely one to add to your reading list (plus, it’s available open access!): https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020625

Our second webinar in the series was focused on PLANNING participatory research. With a good plan in place, the research can seem less daunting, and you can feel more confident in your implementation and results.

One of the most important parts of conducting participatory research is making sure you feel confident and competent in your skills and abilities. Therefore, we suggest a range of ways that you can become trained and more experienced in participatory research, e.g., taking a specific course, learning from a mentor, practice sessions, and immersing yourself in the literature.

Secondly, it is vital to choose a method that best suits your aim, population, and resources that you have available. You should also consider how your participants are going to contribute to the research, what setting will you use, how much time will you need? Is there any equipment that might be useful?

You can read our full guide on planning your participatory research here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ejnVmTs8C6wgMmEE2hCrGXBh1stmv_QB/view?usp=sharing

Talking with the Participatory Experts:

We love to talk with researchers from around the globe to get their real-world thoughts on participatory research in action! This month, we spoke with Hariata G. Tai Rakena. A PhD student from Johns Hopkins University studying social behavioural interventions concentration.

 Why am I passionate about participatory research?  

My work centres on the utilization of community-based participatory research methodology because I believe it is essential to the development and undertaking of valuable research with Indigenous communities. This approach to research allows for their voice to be conveyed throughout the process, and ensures that projects work towards their collective aspirations. 

Share your imPARfections! What do you find challenging about participatory research?  

This approach to research can be challenging work because it is time consuming and often discordant with traditional western scientific research practice. At the same time, it can be more meaningful and provide a deeper understanding of the complex contributions to health problems as they seldom come with a silver-bullet solution.