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

Abstract #114829

Arnold Perkins, Office of the Director, Alameda County Public Health Department, 1000 Broadway, Suite 500, Oakland, CA 94607, (510) 267-8000, arnold.perkins@acgov.org and Sandra M. Witt, DrPH, Community Assessment Planning and Education Unit, Alameda County Public Health Department, 1000 Broadway, Suite 500, Oakland, CA 94607.

The Community Health Teams are a flagship program of Alameda County's New Public Health. Implemented in 1999, the Community Health Teams re-deployed teams of nurses and outreach workers to ten neighborhoods throughout the county.

Along with individual and population health services, the teams provide Community capacity-building services with residents and emerging community groups. Their activities include: jointly assessing community needs and resources; attending local meetings and events; assisting with planning and implementing community action; and organizing the Mini-Grant (MG) program. The MG program provides small stipends ($250-$1500) to voluntary groups to carry out community improvement projects.

The CHT program was based on the health department's commitment to the “new public health,” which began when they joined the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Community-Based Public Health Initiative, and continued through the 1999 rollout and 5-year implementation of the Community Health Teams Initiative. The goal of the new public health was to “ensure community health and well-being” by working for social change to address the social and environmental determinants of health, and developing active partnerships with community groups and residents. To achieve these ends, the ACPHD also pursued intermediate goals of increasing the capacity of residents and staff, so that they would have the knowledge, skills and relationships necessary to contribute to the new public health efforts.

This session will explore the evolution of the CHT and Mini-Grant models over time, and the challenges of translating principles of community capacity-building into public health practice.

Learning Objectives: