Building on previous National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshops that explored how safe and healthy communities are a necessary component of health equity and efforts to improve population health, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement wanted to explore how a variety of community-based organizations came together to achieve population health. To do so, the roundtable hosted a workshop in Oakland, California, on December 8, 2016, to explore multisector health partnerships that engage residents, reduce health disparities, and improve health and well-being. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
The definitive guide to the secret sauce of improving public and population health Nontraditional collaborations have produced some of the most sweeping, health-improving results in recent memory. But whether it's public/private, cross-discipline, or interagency, the formula for identifying these partnerships -- not to mention making them work -- remains very much in progress. The Practical Playbook II is the first resource to elucidate what works (and what doesn't) when it comes to collaborating for change in and around health. It brings together voices of experience and authority to answer this topic's most challenging questions and provide guideposts for applying what they've learned to today's thorniest problems. Readers will find answers to common and advanced questions around multisector partnerships, including: · Identifying sectors and actors that can help to collaborate to improve health · Best practices for initial engagement · Specifics related to collaborations with government, business, faith communities, and other types of partners · The role of data in establishing and running a partnership · Scaling up to maximize impact and remain sustainable · The role of financing · Implications for policy Written in practical terms that will resonate with readers from any background and sector, The Practical Playbook II is the resource that today's helping professions need -- and a roadmap for the next generation of health-improving partnerships.
Building on previous National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshops that explored how safe and healthy communities are a necessary component of health equity and efforts to improve population health, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement wanted to explore how a variety of community-based organizations came together to achieve population health. To do so, the roundtable hosted a workshop in Oakland, California, on December 8, 2016, to explore multisector health partnerships that engage residents, reduce health disparities, and improve health and well-being. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Community-based organizations (CBOs) play a critical role in improving conditions within marginalized communities for health equity. However, stronger organizational capacity within CBOs is needed to develop sustainable public health equity efforts. One strategy that can support sustainable health equity efforts from CBOs in marginalized communities is the use of community-academic partnerships (CAPs)-partnerships extending beyond academic boundaries to translational research in real-world settings. This dissertation project examines the CAP structure of the Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions (FCHES), which is a collaborative, transdisciplinary research center focused on improving public health equity for Flint, Michigan. Using a longitudinal, sequential mixed methods design, the study sought to examine facilitating and hindering factors to CAP collaborations, elicit partner perspectives about and experiences with the collaboration, and compare changes in the overall network structure over time (1 year apart). While unintended, the study had the unique opportunity to also explore how a fluctuating environment related to the COVID-19 pandemic influenced partnerships (e.g., ties) and network outcomes over time. Exploratory social network analysis (SNA) examined the overall network structure, partner connectivity embedded in the network, position of partners, and quality of relationships. Semi-structured interviews were used to expand on the quantitative data and contextualize responses, including obtaining rich details on: (a) perspectives on the collaboration process; (b) barriers and facilitators; (c) motivations for joining and for continuing to participate; (d) goals; and (e) recommendations for improvement from the perspectives of partners and leaders. Understanding community and academic partner's perspectives on collaboration efforts and dynamics of their relationships is important to move health equity forward. The current dissertation project contributes to the literature on CAP perspectives by identifying facilitating and hindering factors to CAPs as well as examining how these change over time; identifying network outcomes, their changes over time, and how they vary by partner type, and motivational factors to participate and continue to participate with the CAP over time. The broader impact of this research builds on systems-level, ecological perspectives grounded in community psychology, emphasizing how networks of CAPs in public health within larger systems of historically marginalized communities can work collaboratively to better understand and resolve health disparities. A closer examination of motivating factors, as well as strengths and challenges that lead to collaboration outcomes can help develop strategies to strengthen partnership dynamics. Further, the study examined changes across two different time-points, allowing for a closer examination on how external influences from fluctuating environments (e.g., community contexts; COVID-19) may change a partnership over time. Results will be useful for stakeholders involved in CAPs interested in developing and improving collaborative approaches to public health that center community-based priorities. Findings ultimately highlight how community-based efforts are dynamic processes, intertwined with contexts related to community, resources, interpersonal connections, power, and equity.
Grounded in a transdisciplinary approach, this groundbreaking text provides extensive, evidence-based information on the value of communities as the primary drivers of their own health and well-being. It describes foundational community health concepts and procedures and presents proven strategies for engaging communities as resources for their own health improvementñan important determinant of individual well-being. It is based on recommendations by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and on the premise that healthy communities are those with populations that participate in their own health promotion, maintenance, and sustenance. The book is unique in its integration of environmental and social justice issues as they significantly affect the advancement of community health. The text focuses on community-oriented health interventions informed by prevention, inclusiveness, and timeliness that both promote better health and are more cost effective than individually focused interventions. It addresses the foundations of community-oriented health services including their history, social determinants, concepts, and policies as well as the economics of community-oriented health services and health disparities and equity. It covers procedures for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating sustainable community health coalitions along with tools for measuring their success. Detailed case studies describe specific settings and themes in U.S. and international community health practice in which communities are both enactors and beneficiaries. An accompanying instructor's manual provides learning exercises, field-based experiential assignments, and multiple-choice questions. A valuable resource for students and practitioners of education, public policy, and social services, this book bridges the perspectives of environmental justice, public health, and community well-being and development, which, while being mutually interdependent, have rarely been considered together. KEY FEATURES: Offers a new paradigm for improving public health through community-driven health coalitions Includes evidence-based strategies for engaging communities in the pursuit of health Demonstrates how to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate community health partnerships Presents transdisciplinary approaches that consider environmental and social justice variables Includes contributions of international authors renowned in community health research and practice
Community health partnerships (CHPs) are voluntary collaborations of diverse community organizations that have joined forces in order to pursue a shared interest in improving community health. Although these cross-sectoral collaborations represent a way to address social determinants of health and disease in society, they suffer from governance and management problems associated with interorganizational relationships in general and health care challenges specifically. A typology of effective governance and management characteristics provides a systematic, theoretically based way of addressing dimensions of governance and management and serves as a guide in constructing, maintaining, and measuring successful partnerships. It offers a multidisciplinary perspective for classifying important organizational issues, identifying barriers to successful development and sustainability, and facilitating the attainment of goals.
"Supporting a Movement for Health and Health Equity" is the summary of a workshop convened in December 2013 by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities and the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement to explore the lessons that may be gleaned from social movements, both those that are health-related and those that are not primarily focused on health. Participants and presenters focused on elements identified from the history and sociology of social change movements and how such elements can be applied to present-day efforts nationally and across communities to improve the chances for long, healthy lives for all. The idea of movements and movement building is inextricably linked with the history of public health. Historically, most movements - including, for example, those for safer working conditions, for clean water, and for safe food - have emerged from the sustained efforts of many different groups of individuals, which were often organized in order to protest and advocate for changes in the name of such values as fairness and human rights. The purpose of the workshop was to have a conversation about how to support the fragments of health movements that roundtable members believed they could see occurring in society and in the health field. Recent reports from the National Academies have highlighted evidence that the United States gets poor value on its extraordinary investments in health - in particular, on its investments in health care - as American life expectancy lags behind that of other wealthy nations. As a result, many individuals and organizations, including the Healthy People 2020 initiative, have called for better health and longer lives.
On June 16, 2016, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement held a workshop at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, New York, to explore the influence of trauma and violence on communities. The workshop highlighted examples of community-based organizations using trauma-informed approaches to treat violence and build safe and healthy communities. Presentations showcased examples that can serve as models in different sectors and communities and shared lessons learned. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the event.
