Let's Work Together Posted on March 1, 2006 Joe Price (bio) suggests that early investigators need to learn from their community partners.

For young investigators, I think it's absolutely key if you're going to do intervention research to come in with an attitude of wanting to learn from your community partner. I think that that's something that, you have to make yourself do that because you're in an environment, an academic environment, where you come along, and you're being told that you're the expert, you're the expert; you're developing an expertise.

To work with people in the community, you have to set that aside, and you have to realize that there are pieces that they have that you don't understand yet. Maybe you do because of your clinical background or your experience. You may have that, a lot of graduate students, but I think for most it's a matter of learning and being willing to learn and having an attitude of saying to your community, 'Let's work together.'

Be genuine about that because again they will sense whether or not it's real. They'll sense whether or not you are just trying to manipulate them so you can get a sample so you can get published. That's something that's hard to teach, but I think people have to be willing to learn and set aside for a minute their academic credentials and say, 'I need to learn here.' I think that's absolutely critical. I think that in their training they're going to get good training.

I'd say, particularly in interventions, look for people who are doing it well; look for people who are being successful. And probably what you're going to find are those people who are working successfully with community partners. Watch how they do it. Learn from how they do that. Spend some time with them even if it costs you money to go up and just be with them for a while. Just watch how they do it and get a sense of how that works.

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