Creating a Bridge of Understanding between Two Worlds: Community-Based Collaborative-Action Research with Sudanese Refugee Women.

Objective: To explore the process of partnership between university researchers, students, and South Sudanese refugee women to address the health challenges associated with their resettlement transition to the United States.

Design And Sample: This qualitative study used a community-based collaborative action research (CBCAR) framework in the design, collection, and analysis of the qualitative data. Twenty refugee women participated in this study.

Intervention: Five health education seminars followed by an audio-recorded focus group were held over 9 months. A final focus group was held to confirm derived themes and develop an action plan.

Results: The partnership between the refugee women and researchers resulted in awareness of how power structures and differing expectations affected the process. The dialog in the focus groups provided an opportunity for refugee women to voice challenges to their health in resettlement. A pattern was recognized about how political and sociocultural events affected the process of CBCAR. Dialog and sharing differing worldviews and perspectives led to insights about ways to improve the health of the South Sudanese refugee community.

Conclusions: CBCAR is a useful framework to address health concerns of a refugee community. Insights from this study provided a foundation for a future intervention research project with the refugee women.