Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #122192

Susan L. Davies, PhD, Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1665 University Blvd., Suite 227, Birmingham, AL 35294, (205) 975-8049, sdavies@uab.edu, Lucy Annang, MPH, Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 227 Ryals Public Health Building, 1665 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35294, and Scott D. Rhodes, PhD, MPH, CHES, Department of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Section on Social Sciences and Health Policy, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1063.

Community-based health promotion programs (CBHPPs) are a vehicle for improving the health of communities. CBHPPs are capable of influencing individual behavior, social norms, and policy development. The benefits of a community-based approach are many, including the potential to build community capacity, resources, and infrastructure, which are more likely to result in long-term positive changes. Eleven common elements of successful HIV CBHPPs were identified through a comprehensive review of the scientific literature to assess characteristics that effective community based programs share. Strategies include involving diverse scientific disciplines and those affected by the programs in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs; employing an ecological approach involving multiple levels of practice; building interventions around one or more sound theoretical models of behavior change; incorporating comprehensive evaluation tools to determine program effectiveness; using media effectively; conducting a thorough needs assessment that is integrated within a comprehensive planning framework; identifying and addressing the most salient determinants specific to the context and the community; utilizing innovative methods and strategies to recruit and retain members of the priority population; providing skills training along with opportunities to practice and master requisite skills; and ensuring provisions are built in for the program to be both sustained and disseminated. These strategies can guide planning efforts to create more efficacious interventions that better meet the needs of the population for which they were intended. CBHPPs that employ these strategies can produce lasting changes, and if implemented consistently over time, may have a significant public health impact on the HIV epidemic.

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