Child and Adolescent-Centered Community-Based Participatory Research in Rural Latin America: ANarrative Review

Abstract

This article provides a narrative literature on Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) applied to studies of children and adolescents (CAs) in rural Latin American communities between 2018 and 2023.  CBPR has become a key framework for involving groups in vulnerable situations in the research process and creating a co-constructive environment for social change. Nevertheless, most of the literature found was adult-centered.  The article reviewed 279 registers across multiple databases, including Scielo, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Our inclusion criteria was based on the ladder of participation of children (Hart, 1987) from level six to eight which implies a methodology that respects and values CA´s agency.

The review reveals a gap in the literature concerning the population of CAs and even more in rural communities, with four studies directly involving them as active key actors and co-researchers. Thus, another finding was that even though there are documents in which the methodology was regarded as participatory action research, they did not meet the principle of co-designing guidelines with the CAs. This review emphasizes the existing discussion on improving CBPR research procedures to develop a methodology that takes CAs as active stakeholders in their communities. Therefore, based on the previous analysis a proposal has been made to understand the role of CAs in rural communities in Latin America with a socioecological approach from recognizing the power dynamics and intersections happening in rural contexts. These would represent a significant initiative that will serve as a foundational framework for Child and Adolescent-centered Community-based participatory research.