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THIS EXPLORATORY STUDY EXAMINES the experiences of community-based participatory researchers' (CBPR) with the IRB. CBPR is oftentimes applied to non-clinical questions where academic researchers collaborate with community partners to address local concerns. Constant Comparative Method guided the analysis of ten CBPR interviews. The interview questions included: How does your conceptualization of research coincide with the regulations' definition? How are community partners involved in the IRB process? What are the benefits/challenges of the IRB process? And, what recommendations do you have to strengthen the IRB process? The article concludes with suggestions for IRB reviewers and CBPR partners on how to facilitate the review of CBPR projects.

Community-based processes for ethics review consider community-level ethical issues that institution-based IRBs often do not.

Community groups are implementing research ethics review processes to determine whether and how research is conducted in their communities. We report on a survey of 109 of these community-based review processes about their relationships with institution based research ethics boards (I-REBs). Ninety-two percent reported that studies they review were also reviewed by an I-REB. Over half characterized their relationship with I-REBs positively. Those with positive relationships were significantly more likely to communicate with the involved I-REBs. Challenges when working with I-REBs included delays, communication problems, and lack of I-REB understanding of community-based participatory research. Strengthening relationships between community-based review processes and I-REBs could ultimately enhance reviews of community-engaged research.

Increasingly communities are engaging in community-based participatory research (CBPR) to address their pressing health concerns, frequently in partnership with institutions. CBPR with its underlying values challenges us to expand the traditional framework of ethical analysis to include community-level and partnership-oriented considerations. This special issue considers ethical considerations inherent in CBPR, presents examples of how communities have created their own processes for research ethics review, and identifies challenges CBPR teams may encounter with institution-based research ethics committees. Drawing upon the special issue articles and the work conducted by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health and the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, we propose an approach and a set of strategies to create a system of research ethics review that more fully accounts for individual and community-level considerations.

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