The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #46134

Roz D. Lasker, MD¹, Alonzo Plough, PhD, MPH², Naomi Schegloff, MPH¹, and Jerry Andrews³. (1) Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health, The New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, Room 452, New York, NY 10029-5293, 212-822-7250, rlasker@nyam.org, (2) Director, Public Health - Seattle and King County, 999 Third Avenue, Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98104, (3) Macon County Health Department, 1221 East Condit, Decatur, IL 62521

The broad and challenging mission of public health, coupled with limitations in public resources, have made collaboration with the community an increasingly important strategy for local health departments (LHDs). Most of the collaborations in which LHDs are involved are led by the LHD and operate within public health paradigms. In "community health governance" (CHG) — a community-driven process being developed by nine communities in the Turning Point initiative — LHDs participate on an equal footing with a broad array of other organizations and community residents. Because CHG is not dominated by any single paradigm, the process enables its participants to break out of their silos and think and act in new ways. The LHDs that are stimulating and supporting CHG are pushing the boundaries of community-based public health. Going beyond previously described efforts to engage the community in public health practice, they are helping to create broad and independent processes for improving community health. This presentation will describe CHG, highlighting the fundamental differences between the CHG process and other models of public health collaboration, like MAPP. It will also examine the overall impact, thus far, of CHG on governmental public health in the nine communities participating in the Turning Point Community Health Governance Workgroup.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to (
• describe what community health governance (CHG) is; and (
• discuss how the CHG process differs from other models of public health collaboration

Keywords: Community-Based Public Health, Local Public Health Agencies

Related Web page: www.cacsh.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.