BCC’s methodology is driven by Participatory Action Research (PAR), which empowers youth and adults to conduct local research so they can better advocate for health and economic justice for themselves and their communities.
Early PAR studies were initiated four years before BCC was formalized, as part of NYS’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program, through which hundreds of partners worked in close partnership to improve health in Brooklyn. Efforts centered on vulnerable communities where more than 90% of the population is Black and Latino, and where historic and ongoing systemic inequities affect every aspect of individual and community life.