Scientific rigor and community participation in health promotion research: Are they compatible?

An important challenge for those conducting health promotion research is to reconcile the competing demands of scientific rigor and community participation. To develop further the theoretical and empirical basis for health promotion, research needs to be scientifically rigorous in every aspect of conceptualization, design, implementation, analysis and interpretation. Another widely held perspective in health promotion research is that it should be based on widespread community participation in various stages of the process. These two compelling forces are competing to the extent that they create questions about control of the research questions, methods used and relevance. The nature of this dilemma is discussed in this paper, along with an example of how one community-based research unit is dealing with these issues.