The field of community psychology has focused on individuals' and groups' behavior in interaction with their social contexts, with an emphasis on prevention, early intervention, wellness promotion, and competency development. Over the past few decades, however, community-based applications of the newest research methodologies have not kept pace with the development of theory and methodology with regard to multilevel data collection and analysis.

The Handbook of Methodological Approaches to Community-Based Research is intended to aid the community-oriented researcher in learning about and applying cutting-edge quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. The Handbook presents a number of innovative methodologies relevant to community-based research, illustrating their applicability to specific social problems and projects. These methodological approaches explore individuals and groups in interaction with their communities and provide examples of how to implement and evaluate interventions conducted at the community level. The chapters discuss how particular methodologies can be used to help gather and analyze data dealing with community-based issues. Furthermore, they illustrate the benefits that occur when community theorists, interventionists, and methodologists work together to better understand complicated person-environment systems and the change processes within communities.

社区心理学领域一直关注个人和群体在与社会环境互动中的行为，强调预防、早期干预、健康促进和能力发展。然而，在过去的几十年里，基于社区的最新研究方法的应用并没有跟上多层次数据收集和分析方面的理论和方法的发展步伐。

基于社区的研究方法手册》旨在帮助面向社区的研究人员学习和应用前沿的定量、定性和混合方法。该手册介绍了一些与社区研究有关的创新方法，说明了它们对具体社会问题和项目的适用性。这些方法论探讨了个人和团体与社区的互动，并提供了如何实施和评估在社区层面上进行的干预措施的例子。这些章节讨论了如何使用特定的方法学来帮助收集和分析处理社区问题的数据。此外，他们还说明了当社区理论家、干预者和方法学家一起工作以更好地理解复杂的人-环境系统和社区内的变化过程时所产生的好处。