Drexel University’s Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health is partnering with the Community Research Review Board (CRRB) in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone Community to transform how traditional Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) review and approve their studies. This community-engaged approach to research will better ensure that researchers recruit residents and collect data to address the social determinants of health in the Promise Zone in the most trustful, community-engaged, ethical, culturally salient and scientifically rigorous way, while at the same time increasing the ability to generate data that leads to benefits for the community.
If successful, this practice has the potential for a strong community-led system of ethical oversight, research review and collaboration to solve the most pressing community crises. Such a methodology would be uniquely positioned to spread far beyond our region, promoting broader, systemic transformation of community research in promise zones and other under-resourced, highly researched communities.
