Building strategic capacity for community-partnered policy change to achieve health equity in Detroit

Public health scholars are increasingly documenting and analyzing the value of integrating policy advocacy into the work of community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. The objective of this presentation is to report the results of a participatory assessment conducted with two CBPR partnerships to identify strategic measures of partnership capacity and forms of training that would be most useful for enabling CBPR partnerships to assess and improve their ability to engage in policy change interventions. This project was conducted with members of the Board of the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (URC) and the Steering Committee of the REACH Detroit partnership, a URC-affiliated project, using closed-ended questionnaires, follow-up interviews and large group discussions. The questionnaire and interviews revealed a high degree of partnership commitment to engagement in policy-related activity, and a strong belief that policymakers should be made aware of the work and achievements of the partnerships. They also revealed a corresponding belief that these partnerships have not yet become as effective at translating research findings into policy change as members of these partnerships would like. Partnership members were in favor of engaging a broad range of policy-related activities, and were most interested in training in the components of organizing a policy change campaign. After reviewing these findings, we will discuss how the partnership board and steering committee each identified and prioritized strategies for strengthening their capacities to engage in successful community-driven policy interventions that seek to address the fundamental causes of health inequity.