A Participatory Action Research Intervention in a Rural Community of Mexico Concerns Report Method^*

Rubi Arellano^**
Fabricio E. Balcázar^***
University of Illinois at Chicago

Francisco Alvarado^****
Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Services

Sergio Suárez^*****
Federación de Jaliscienses del Medio Oeste

Recibido: 01 de diciembre de 2014  Aceptado: 18 de enero de 2016

Para citar este artículo:

Arellano, R., Balcázar, F.E., Alvarado, F., & Suárez, S. (2016). A Participatory Action Research Intervention in a Rural Community of Mexico. Universitas Psychologica, 15(2), doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy15-2.pari

Abstract

For several decades, community interventions have promoted community development with strategies involving capacity building, advocacy, social change, and empowerment. Although community interventions intend to ameliorate social and economic inequalities, there is still a need to evaluate the outcomes of Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR approaches have demonstrated to be a helpful tool to address and identify community issues and strengths and lead community members into action. The PAR approach described in this case study of "Juanacatlan Renace" (Juanacatlan Reborn)-the Concerns Report Method (CRM)-provided a process for the community to come together and identify main issues, organize, and take actions. The findings suggest multiple activities and outcomes in areas like environmental contamination, social services, and education. Participatory methodologies like the Concerns report Method provided opportunities to community members to become engaged in pursing issues and address their own needs. The implications for community psychology research and practice are discussed.

Keywords : Participatory action research; concerns report method; community development

Trickett, Espino, and Hawe (2011) assert that community interventions have been used increasingly in fields like public health, health promotion, community psychology and prevention science. Many community interventions have been focused on developing, implementing, and evaluating health promotion and prevention programs (Brunk & Goeppinger, 1990; Mulroy & Lauber, 2004; Stra-chan, Wright, & Hancock, 2007). The forms in which community interventions have been implemented have varied widely across these fields. However, promoting overall community development is more challenging than trying to address a particulate problem. More recently, community interventions have increased the use of strategies that emphasize community development involving capacity building, advocacy, social change and empowerment (Ohmer & Korr, 2006; Strachan et al., 2007).

One methodology for community intervention is Participatory Action Research (PAR). The use of PAR has increased over the last 20 years in the social and health science research. This increase is due to the potential of PAR approaches to improve the relationship between research and practice, address social justice issues and empower people to take ownership over improving their own social reality (Cargo & Mercer, 2008). PAR approaches have been successful in addressing and identifying many community issues and strengths.

Selener (1997) defined Participatory Action Research as "a process through which members of an oppressed group or community identify a problem, collect and analyze information, and act upon the problem in order to find solutions and promote social and political transformation" (p. 17). The PAR approach integrates the research process with active collaboration and participation of the underprivileged in order to promote transformative actions. PAR has the potential to generate scientific knowledge with the involvement of the people most affected by the issue being studied.

The community psychology literature suggests that PAR approaches can be used to build a group's capacity for self-advocacy in a manner that helps foster the improvement of life conditions (e.g., Balcazar, Garcia-Iriarte & Suarez-Balcazar, 2009). Hence, empowering methodologies such as PAR are useful to organize community efforts to identify needs and solve problems in underserved populations. Ultimately, the PAR process can provide research participants with a sense of control over their lives that lead them into an empowerment process to promote social change (Trickett, Espino & Hawe, 2011).

The Concerns Report Method as a Participatory Action Research Approach

The methodology used for this case study was the Concerns Report Method (CRM), a participatory action-oriented strategy designed to identify issues, brainstorm solutions, and take action from the perspective of community members (Fawcett, Seekins, Whang, Muiu & Suarez de Balcazar, 1984). There is ample evidence to support the role of the CRM as a PAR strategy (Fawcett et al., 1988), since CRM uses a concern survey which involves community members in the decision-making process early on, thereby increasing their likelihood of getting actively involved and staying involved. The method is a reliable, systematic, and simple way to tap into information about the community (Community Tool Box, 2014). The Concern Report process increases knowledge and critical consciousness by promoting critical awareness of common concerns and possibilities for change (Fawcett et al., 1994).

In this PAR process, community members play an active role in the creation of the concerns survey. The purpose of the concerns survey is to identify primary community needs. The survey is distributed to as many local people as possible. The survey results are then analyzed, shared, and discussed with the community members in public forums. In these meetings, community members create a plan of action that addresses the identified concerns and strengths. This type of action is consistent with Selener's (1997) assertion that "one of the major goals of PAR is to solve problems at the community level" (p. 12).

The validity and reliability of the CRM have been established. Research suggests that there are overall high ratings of helpfulness, completeness and representativeness of the CRM and that it is useful in measuring the needs of citizens with disabilities (Fawcett et al., 1988). Schriner and Fawcett (1988) found high rates of validity and reliability for a concern survey developed by low-income families (Balcázar et al., 2009). Fawcett et al. (1988) performed a test-retest reliability to assess whether the CRM produced similar results on repeated measurements. The CRM was highly consistent across time points, with approximately 90% of the importance ratings and 80% of the satisfaction ratings varying by one rating point or less. Taken together, this research suggests that the CRM is a valid and reliable methodology for assessing community concerns. A Spearman rank correlation between responses of405 subjects to the same survey items on a survey developed by people with disabilities at 18-month intervals suggests that scores were highly consistent (rs = 0.94, 2 = 10.85, p < .001) (Balcázar et al., 2009).

Project background

Juanacatlán is a small rural community near the city of Guadalajara, in the east-central part of the state of Jalisco, México. The community has a population of 13,218 persons, 6,675 men and 6,543 women and around 57.69% of the residents are younger than 29 years old (COEPO, 2010). Overall, 97.51% of Juanacatlán inhabitants are catholic and 4.27% of the households depend financially on their relatives living in the United States for the past five years (COEPO, 2010).

The Santiago River is one of the longest rivers in Mexico, and it runs adjacent to the length of the town of Juanacatlán. The river has been increasingly polluted for the past forty years. One of the industrial corridors of Guadalajara is located near the river, so the industrial waste is dumped directly into the Santiago River without any type of treatment to filter-out contaminants. The Santiago River is one of the most serious health threats for the residents of Juanacatlán. It has led to an increase in respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and chronic stress, among others conditions (IMDEC, 2007). A few active leaders of the community have documented their complains about the river for the past two decades with the hope of securing support from the appropriate governmental entities. Believing that the local, state and federal governments were not taking their health-related issues seriously, the community began to organize itself for action in 2009. The lack of response from the authorities contributed to the creation of a cohesive movement among residents of the municipality. This movement facilitated the initiative that is the subject of this study.

Case study: "Juanacatlan Renace"

"Juanacatlan Renace" (Juanacatlan Reborn) was an initiative that involved collaboration from multiple agencies seeking to work with community members to address the needs of the town of Juanacatlan, in the state of Jalisco (Mexico). The Federation of small business owners and regional clubs from the Mexican State of Jalisco in the United States (FEDEJAL), the "Club Pro-Obras Juanacatlan" (a Chicago-based club of immigrants from the town of Juanacatlan), the Government of the State of Jalisco, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the Necahual Foundation (a Chicago-based charity created to promote youth development efforts in the city of Guadalajara), and the Municipality of Juanacatlan teamed up to create a transnational program focused on identifying community strengths and challenges and addressing the needs identified by the community members. A volunteer from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) introduced the CRM as the participatory methodology to identify the community needs and use its findings to promote social change. The "Juanacatlan Renace" initiative was started by immigrants living in the Chicago area. As shown in Figure 1, the CRP process has 6 ph ases; the following is a brief description of the ph ases as they were implemented in Juanacatlan.

Development of the collaborative partnership

Leaders from FEDEJAL in Chicago contacted the UIC researcher to ask for advice about how to proceed with trying to help the community in a meaningful way. They originally considered the possibility of conducting a census of the community in order to better understand its composition. The UIC researcher proposed to use the CRM in order to identify needs, determine priorities and set an agenda for action. The proposal was well received and a meeting was arranged with the executive committee of FEDAJAL to make a formal presentation of the proposal. This was also a way to start a dialogue about the steps in the process. A month later the UIC researcher was invited to visit the town and held meetings with key community leaders to discuss the idea. This step was also important in order to gather the necessary support from local community leaders and their ideas about how best to proceed. At this point, all of the organizations mentioned earlier agreed to participate and support the initiative and two town residents volunteered to coordinate the process.

Reflection on values and central functions of the community

This phase requires the development of a matrix that allows the formulation of specific items for the development of the concerns survey (Balcazar et al., 2009). It is important that community members collaborate and contribute in deciding what issues are most important to them (Community Tool Box [CTB], 2012). A group of community leaders from Juanacatlan met with the UIC researcher to identify relevant community functions and values. This small group of leaders reflected different interests, values, ages, experiences and community geographic locations. They helped to generate the guiding framework for the development of the concerns survey-a table with community values and critical functions. The group included a political candidate from the party that has been promoting the cleaning and sanitizing of the river, the Parish priest, a long-time farmer from the township, and the mayor at that time. This group held an initial meeting to discuss the research process and identify potential participants for the next phases. The meeting also allowed community leaders to ask questions about the process in order to facilitate understanding of the tasks and resources that were going to be required to collect the surveys.

Identification of community concerns and strengths

A critical step in the process was to identify the most important community needs and strengths in the town of Juanacatlan. Therefore, a representative group of community leaders and members from Juanacatlan collaborated to develop the CRM survey. Guidance was provided by the UIC researcher and a Chicago state employee from the Department of Rehabilitation Services (DRS). These volunteers were native Spanish speakers and Hispanic, so language and cultural differences were minimal. Further, special care was taken to become aware of potential cultural differences. Based on the table of values and community functions created during the previous phase, a team of 12 community leaders and community representatives participated in the development of a preliminary list of survey items. The final draft survey was pilot tested with the help of five community volunteers. This pilot test helped modify and clarify questions to insure proper wording. The final survey had a total of 53 items. A demographic section included 15 questions and it was at the beginning of the survey. These questions included age, gender, marital status, education level, and types of disabilities in the household. The survey was created in Spanish. The survey included two types of questions for each issue. The first question asked about the importance of a particular issue ("How importance is it for you that..."). The second question asked about the respondent's satisfaction with the issue ("How satisfied are you with."). Both questions were rated on a 5-point scale, where 1 indicated not important or not satisfied and 5 indicated very important or very satisfied.

Data collection and Analysis

Once the survey was finalized, the state government of Jalisco printed the survey. Juanacatlan former mayor asked support from "El Salto" High School and the National College of Technical Occupational Education (CONALEP) to collect the data. A group of 30 volunteer students canvassed door-to-door to collect the concerns surveys. The students were trained by the two local project coordinators who in turn had been trained by the UIC researcher. The students collected the data as part of their community service required to graduate from the school. The mayor supported the initiative, and facilitated the transportation during the data collection phase. The data collection was held over a period of 1 month and a half during the weekends. Only residents living in the municipality of Juanacatlan were asked to respond the survey. A total of 1,228 people responded; the average age of the respondents was 44 years. Participants were 60% female and 40% male. A total of 53% of the participants had family members at the United States of America, and they reside mainly at California (64%) and Chicago (18%).

Table 1 summarizes the list of the top community strengths and concerns identified in Juanacatlan. Strengths were items that had high ratings in both importance and satisfaction, while concerns were rated high in importance but low in satisfaction (CTB, 2012). These results were the topics targeted for action by community members.

Data sharing at public forum

The results of the survey were summarized in a brief report and shared during Sunday masses and at a community public forum held in Juanacatlan's downtown plaza on a Sunday after mass. This report was also posted in Juanacatlan's Mayoral office. Furthermore, there was a representative from the state government of Jalisco who attended the town hall meeting. During the town hall meeting, the mayor directed the discussion of the strengths and concerns identified by the community. Attendees were asked to provide additional information to explain the problems and how they perceived them. It was obvious that the majority had very strong feelings about the pollution in the river and that became a priority concern. Promoting the culture of Jalisco through dance and music was of interest to many teachers and parents of children and youth. Community members were asked to join various committees that fit their personal interests (e.g., environmentalist joined the river pollution committee; teachers and parents of school children joined a cultural committee; etc.).

Planning and taking action

Community leaders used the survey results for planning and taking actions. Some of the proposals included: The need to increase the promotion of social activities that enhance community traditions such as celebrating family day to strengthen Juanacatlân families; provide opportunities such as field trips for children to visit museums in Guadalajara; organize soccer tournaments for children and youth; conduct a traditional religious play on Christmas; etc. They also proposed to increase community services and to work with the elementary school teachers to identify vulnerable children. Some of the ideas for new services included, preventing violence against children; offering early intervention workshops to improve early child development among low-income families; and handcrafting classes for youth. In reference to activities that build community capacity, participants proposed to distribute environmental information on the status of the river's condition in order to increase awareness among the population about the river's pollution and the health risks that it poses, and the group nominated a leader who would focus on improving the economic conditions in the agricultural fields near town. Some members also proposed to establish a committee in order to build a multipurpose center where they could hold community meetings and also offer visitation services for families with a death relative who did not have space in their home.

Results

The initiative's general coordinator and promoter was the former president of FEDEJAL who is from Juanacatlán and lives in Chicago. At that time, he had good relationships with the local and state government, and with Juanacatlán community leaders to start the initiative. Through the "Club Proobras Juanacatlán," he was able to gather funding from immigrants living in the Chicago area and the Mexican government, and brought together human resources in order to start the initiative.

After the CRM results were analyzed and published, community members came together to suggest some ideas to address the main concerns and increase the strengths that were identified. Therefore, the need to create a non-for profit association came out. The main objective of this association was to increase community social services and promote activities that enhance community traditions. Community leaders decided to create a non-for profit association called "Necahual Mexico A.C" Necahual mission was to help children and family members who live in vulnerable environments and to provide educational, cultural, and recreational activities. Necahual operates with funds donated by immigrants living in the Chicago area. Necahual created a social service delivery unit to offer support services and prevention to families affected by domestic violence (UAVI acronym in Spanish "Unidad de Atención a la Violencia Intrafamiliar"). The unit provides free preventive, legal services, and psychological therapies. In 2011, UAVI provided 27 psychological services to community members; in 2012 there were 45 services; in 2013 there were 70 services; and in 2014 through June there have been 70 thus far. Hence, the initiative general coordinator sought the support from the University of Guadalajara to have clinical psychologists conduct their internship program at Neca-hual. Currently, the University of Guadalajara is collaborating with 3 clinical psychologists to cover the growing demand for services. Among the social activities performed by Necahual were: annual field trips for children to "Trompo Magico " museum and to Guadalajara's park zoo; soccer tournaments; religious plays in December; Christmas celebrations; mini Olympic games event, family's day celebration, children's day celebration, and handcraft classes. The handcraft classes failed due to lack of community participation.

The general coordinator informed "Club ProObras Juanacatldn" members about a Mexican government program called 3x1, and how the clubs could benefit from it. The 3x1 is a program created by the Mexican federal government to support immigrants' effort to improve the living conditions in their hometowns. This program involves the participation of the federal, state, and local governments, and hometown associations in the U.S. to facilitate community development and productive projects. In the 3x1 program, for each dollar donated by an immigrant group, each layer of government donates a dollar, so 1 dollar donation can potentially become $4. The 3x1 program's objectives are to benefit communities with high levels of poverty, to promote social development-community projects, to reinforce civil society and government partnerships and strengthen Mexican immigrants' relationships with their hometowns (SEDESOL, 2014).

The activities performed with the purpose of raising funds by the 'Club Pro-Obras Juanacatldn include: an annual gala dance, a raffle, and a traditional Mexican dance. The Club also organizes a yearly family picnic (free of cost) to promote fraternization among members and an annual event called 'Jalisco in Evanston' with traditional music, dance, and food to promote the richness of Mexican culture in Chicago, also free of charge.

Before the "Club Pro-Obras Juanacatldn" joined the "Juanacatldn Renace" initiative, the Club only helped the town nursing home for elderly people. After the unification, the Club started to benefit from the federal government 3x1 program and expanded their mission to meet different community needs. The Club donated to the nursing home a 16 passengers mini-bus accessible for people with disabilities, five home hospital beds, home appliances and furniture, built an elevator inside the nursing home, installed new doors in the rooms, made the bathroom safe and accessible, repaired the kitchen drain and the gas line, and upgraded the nursing home electricity. Furthermore, the Club supported the nursing home with funds to start a project for growing organic vegetables. The project consists of harvesting organic vegetables in partnership with the CONALEP students. The students are helping residents grow the vegetables as part of a school course. The profits generated by the vegetables sales are going to help the nursing home.

The "Club Pro-Obras Juanacatlán" supported the town's church providing resources to remodel the Juanacatlán funeral home and the multiple-use community center. In 2012, Club Pro-Obras Juanacatlán staff traveled to the town in order to choose students who needed university scholarships the most (based on financial need). The Club donated seven scholarships to students that for lack of economic resources were at risk to abandoning their university studies. In 2013, the Club only awarded three scholarships due to the local government lack of support (the new elected mayor was no longer supporting the 3x1 program). Further, the Club contributed to the Juanacatlán fire department with firefighter professional equipment, and donated an ambulance to the town hospital that provides low-cost health services.

Another community need that resulted from the survey needs assessment was to decrease the river pollution and its health risks. Hence, the former mayor sought support from state and federal governments, and the national water commission, with the purpose of getting resources to decrease the Santiago river's pollution. At the time, a child drowned in the Santiago River due to the high levels of pollutants. This event was widely publicized in the local and Guadalajara newspapers. Therefore, the mayor and community members took advantage of this sorrowful event to lobby the state government to build a treatment plant to clean the water. An article from La Jornada -a well-known national Mexican newspaper- informed that after the mayor and community members lobbied the state government to build a treatment plant to clean the water, on March 2011 the Governor of the state of Jalisco inaugurated the first industrial waste water filtration treatment plant with an investment of over a quarter of a million dollars (Periódico del Sur, 2011). However, the State of Jalisco's Water Commission Lab conducted follow up analyzes of the water quality on January 2012 at the level adjacent to the town ofJuanacatlán to determine the quality of the river water and found that although there was an improvement, the river water continues to be seriously polluted and the levels of contaminants exceed the acceptable limits for human utilization nor will these levels promote the preservation or capacity to sustain aquatic life (CEA, 2012). On July 2014, the new president of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto, inaugurated construction of the nation's largest water treatment plant near the Santiago river, called 'Agua PrietaThis plant can process 8,500 liters of sewage per second. The water quality after the treatment process generated by Agua Prieta will have sufficient quality for use in agriculture (La Jornada, 2014). Table 2 summarizes some of the community concerns identified with the CRM in Juanacatlan that were addressed by the activities generated by the 'Juanacatlan Renace' initiative.

Discussion

The CRM is a systematic participatory process for setting agendas for community change from the perspective of those who share a common predicament (Balcazar et al., 2009). Including the citizens as partners in the research process is fundamental to ensuring that the research is responsive to their needs and values. In addition, that collaborative effort can improve the quality and applicability of the research (Balcazar, Garate-Serafini, & Keys, 2004). A fundamental goal of the Concern Report process is to provide accurate information about issues and alternatives from people affected by the issues (Fawcett, et al., 1994). This study illustrated an implementation of the CRM with positive results. In effect, Juanacatlan community members and immigrants living in the Chicago area took ownership of their hometown issues and worked together to improve their social conditions. The findings suggest that the CRM is an affective tool that community psychologists can use to help community members identify their issues, resources and inspire them to engage in activities to pursue social change.

Overall, the activities implemented by this initiative promoted social development, reduced health risks, and increased community services. The data showed that the Juanacatlan Renace initiative promoted community involvement, government participation, and the collaboration from local, state and international institutions. This initiative was an important first step to create awareness, learning, outreach, and to begin the community empowerment process. The PAR process performed at Juanacatlan introduced an ideology of collaboration and citizen responsibility. The data collected in this study illustrates how Juanacatlan

Renace was a transnational initiative that facilitated the union of immigrants living in the Chicago area and Juanacatlân's community members. The Juanacatlan Renace initiative was an example of shared responsibility over community needs and teamwork among different layers of the Mexican government, immigrants, local and international educational institutions, the Catholic Church, Juanacatlân community members, and non-profit associations. The residents of Juanacatlân and immigrants from Juanacatlân living in the Chicago area organized efforts and took actions in order to address the most pressing needs that were affecting community well-being.

The empowerment process is linked to increasing the knowledge of community members. In this case, that knowledge includes an understanding of the relevant social context of the community, the goals that were attained, resources utilized, and the ways in which future goals could be met (Bennet & Chapman, 2010). Juanacatlan Renace has a high probability of continuing to meet the needs of the Juanacatlân population and strengthen their future. Moreover, the information in this study shows that the PAR approach conducted in the Juanacatlan Renace initiative has the potential to generate knowledge about the involvement of the people living in marginalized conditions. Many groups are likely to benefit from using a PAR approach to develop meaningful services and goods that improve their life conditions. The PAR approach has the potential to increase the capacity of a community group to take an active role in decisions that affect their quality of life and advocate for services needed according to their own perspective.

In this case, Necahual continues to fund the operation of UAVI and to perform cultural and recreational events in the community. In addition, the "Juanacatlan Renace" initiative has functioned as a facilitator for immigrants living in Chicago to come together to enhance Juanacatlan's community development. The Club Pro Obras Juanacatlân continues its mission and projects even though the current state government stopped supporting the Club's projects (the 3x1 program is no longer being implemented because of concerns that the new governments at the state and local levels are asking for exclusive administration of the funds and the lack of transparency makes the process ripe for corruption).

This PAR process generated a collaborative partnership from multiple institutions (UIC, the Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Services, FEDEJAL, Federal, State and Local Mexican Governments, Necahual Mexico, Club Pro-Obras Juanacatlân, the University of Guadalajara, the Local Food Bank, and CONALEP) that worked together with community members to improve their lives, either at the individual or community levels. Fortunately, the lack of current government support has not stopped the efforts from immigrants and Juanacatlân community members to continue their mission to improve the community's social conditions.

The "Juanacatlân Renace" outcomes illustrate a case of community capacity building since the community has been able to overcome the obstacles that interfere with community progress such as the current lack of support from the federal and state Mexican government. The collaborative partnership generated from the PAR process has achieved sustainable results in the community. Further, the PAR process facilitated the creation of "Necahual Mexico A.C." and the strengthening of the "Club Pro-Obras Juanacatlân." It is important to note that both institutions continue organizing community efforts to solve problems and create opportunities for social change in Juanacatlân. Recently, the annual gala event generated $6,000 in profits to fund next years' projects. Finally, the genuine willingness to help their hometown from the general coordinator, the immigrants and community volunteers created a transparent process to build trust and credibility with respect to the "Juanacatlân Renace" initiative. Participants involved in the initiative did not receive any economic compensation. The accomplishments were documented and published through social media, newspapers, videos, and pictures.

Limitations

There are at least two limitations that should be mentioned. The first concerns the capacity to generalize the findings to other populations given the unique characteristics of the individuals and institutions involved in Juanacatlan Renace. Juanacatlan is a small rural Mexican community with strong family values and local pride. The community had a very strong participation among the immigrants in the Chicago area and a strong leadership. The leadership also had personal connections with the Governor of Jalisco, the University, a State agency, and close relationships with the priest and the town mayor at the time of the start of the PAR process. All these relationships had an impact on the effectiveness of the process which makes it unique. Further research is needed to examine how PAR methodologies work when applied within communities that lack these types of resources and supports.

Second, this study summarizes the overall process of PAR and focuses on the leader's unique perspective on how the "Juanacatlan Renace" initiative was implemented and its outcomes. However, it would be advisable to assess the experience from community members who were not directly involved in the initiative. Future research may try to focus on understanding the perceptions, experiences or opinions that the "Juanacatlan Renace" initiative had on the residents of Juanacatlan.

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