Background: Numerous sets of principles have been developed to guide the conduct of community-based participatory research (CBPR). However, they tend to be written in language that is most appropriate for academics and other research professionals; they may not help lay people from the community understand CBPR.
Methods: Many community members of the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer assisting with the Educational Program to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening (EPICS) had little understanding of CBPR. We engaged community members in developing culturally-specific principles for conducting academic-community collaborative research.
Results: We developed a set of CBPR principles intended to resonate with African-American community members.
Conclusions: Applying NBLIC-developed CBPR principles contributed to developing and implementing an intervention to increase colorectal cancer screening among African Americans.
Keywords: African American; cancer; community-based participatory research; principles.