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Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is increasingly being used by academics to address urban health and inequity. While its foundational literature emphasizes CBPR’s role in eschewing the traditional balance of power between communities and institutions, some scholars and grassroots activists note that it has not consistently delivered community-led, action-oriented strategies. Here we examine gaps between theory and current practice of CBPR. First, we assess its fundamental practices through social movement theory. Second, we examine narratives from grassroots leaders who have utilized CBPR in their environmental justice efforts. Three key facilitating factors are often cited for authentic applications of CBPR: (1) grounding research within community-specific opportunities for change, (2) collaborating with a strong community partner, and (3) facilitating flexibility in research processes. Building on previous scholarship, we investigate the complexity of CBPR implementation that may dampen its potency as a social change strategy and highlight the need for nuanced and critical application of best practices to suit local contexts. This is accomplished by pairing the theoretical framework with the experiences of four community leaders who are members of the Moving Forward Network (MFN). Narratives from their experiences with partnering with academic institutions speak to how theoretical complexities with CBPR occur in practice.

By framing entrepreneurship courses in the context of interdisciplinary team projects, students build important work-related skills whether they pursue an entrepreneurial path or employment after g...

The Tech Startup model is an approach to learning software engineering methods by partnering with students studying entrepreneurship to collaborate on real software products. Agile software development methods align with Lean Startup practices so that students in sister classes experience leading contemporary practices in their respective fields. This paper describes a pilot study of interdisciplinary Tech Startup projects with a heuristic evaluation of software engineering realism and formative assessment of students' surveyed experiences. The study found several similar student outcomes to other project models; however, it also identified limitations in the pilot with corresponding recommendations for future implementations.

Urodynamic studies are commonly performed in women before surgery for stress urinary incontinence, but there is no good evidence that they improve outcomes.We performed a multicenter, randomized, noninferiority trial involving women with uncomplicated, demonstrable stress urinary incontinence to compare outcomes after preoperative office evaluation and urodynamic tests or evaluation only. The primary outcome was treatment success at 12 months, defined as a reduction in the score on the Urogenital Distress Inventory of 70% or more and a response of "much better" or "very much better" on the Patient Global Impression of Improvement. The predetermined noninferiority margin was 11 percentage points.A total of 630 women were randomly assigned to undergo office evaluation with urodynamic tests or evaluation only (315 per group); the proportion in whom treatment was successful was 76.9% in the urodynamic-testing group versus 77.2% in the evaluation-only group (difference, -0.3 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, -7.5 to 6.9), which was consistent with noninferiority. There were no significant between-group differences in secondary measures of incontinence severity, quality of life, patient satisfaction, rates of positive provocative stress tests, voiding dysfunction, or adverse events. Women who underwent urodynamic tests were significantly less likely to receive a diagnosis of overactive bladder and more likely to receive a diagnosis of voiding-phase dysfunction, but these changes did not lead to significant between-group differences in treatment selection or outcomes.For women with uncomplicated, demonstrable stress urinary incontinence, preoperative office evaluation alone was not inferior to evaluation with urodynamic testing for outcomes at 1 year. (Funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00803959.).

Minimum important difference (MID) estimates the minimum degree of change in an instrument's score that correlates with subjective sense of improvement. The aim of this study was to estimate the MID for the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI), Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ) and Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q) using anchor and distribution-based approaches in patients with urge-predominant incontinence and whether MID changes over time.This was a sub-analysis of a multi-center trial of 307 women with pure urge (11) or urge-predominant (296) incontinence who completed condition-specific instruments 10 weeks and 8 months after randomization to anticholinergic medication with or without behavioral therapy. We applied anchor-based methods only when the Kendall's rank correlations between the anchors (Global Perception of Improvement (GPI), Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ), and incontinence episodes) and the incontinence instruments (UDI, UDI irritative subscale, IIQ, and OAB-q subscales) were ≥ 0.3. We applied three distribution-based methods to all instruments: effect sizes of ± 0.2 SD (small) and ± 0.5 SD (medium), and standard error of measurement of ± 1. Analyses were performed at both time points.Anchor-based MIDs for the UDI ranged from -35 to -45 and -15 to -25 for the irritative subscale distribution-based methods MIDs for UDI and IIQ ranged between -10 to -25 and -19 to -49, respectively, reflective of a reduction in bother and symptom severity (SS). OAB-q subscale MIDs ranged from +5 to +12, denoting improved quality of life (HRQL) and -13 to -25, consistent with a reduction in SS.The MID in women with urge-predominant UI for the UDI and UDI irritative are -35 and -15. Our findings are consistent with previously reported MIDs for the OAB-q subscales. Distribution-based method MIDs are lower values than anchor-based values. The MID did not typically change over the time.