Abstract
To fully appreciate the health of an individual, it is necessary to understand the
effect of a person's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors within their social, environmental,
and cultural context. The medical model, although extremely useful, has its limitations
when it comes to understanding the health of people as they live in the world. Wellness
does not happen in the doctor's office alone, akin to the fact that scientific discovery
is not limited to a laboratory. In this perspectives article, we posit that by using
a community-engaged research approach, we not only allow for the translation of scientific
discovery into clinical practice and public health initiatives, but we also create
a new way of generating and integrating knowledge to improve health outcomes. In short,
community-engaged research is not only a tool for translation, it is unique method
for scientific discovery bringing transdisciplinary teams together that study health
problems in real-world contexts and consider sustainability at the front end of asking
the research question.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
December 18,
2012
Received:
August 15,
2012
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
