141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

281341
Community engagement: The community-partnered participatory reseach model

Saturday, November 2, 2013 : 1:22 PM - 1:44 PM

Loretta S. Jones, MA , Healthy African American Families II, Los Angeles, CA
During the past two decades, there has been an increased use of community-based participatory research in public health activities, especially as part of efforts to understand health disparities affecting communities of color. This presentation will describe the history and lessons learned of a long-standing community participatory project, Healthy African American Families (HAAF), in Los Angeles, California. HAAF evolved from a partnership formed by a community advisory board, university, and federal health agency to an independent, incorporated community organization that facilitates and brokers research and health promotion activities within its community. HAAF created mechanisms for community education and networks of community relationships and reciprocity through which mutual support, research, and interventions are integrated. These sustained, institutionalized relationships unite resources and both community and scientific expertise in a community-partnered participatory research model to address multiple health problems in the community, including preterm birth, HIV, asthma, depression, and diabetes. The HAAF participatory process builds on existing community resiliency and resources and on centuries of self-help, problem-solving, cooperative action, and community activism within the African American community. HAAF demonstrates how community-partnered participatory research can be a mechanism for directing power, collective action, system change, and social justice in the process of addressing health disparities at the community level.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate the effectiveness of the Community-Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) model as a means of planning health education strategies, interventions, and programs that reduce health disparities in diverse communities.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been working in community-partnered participatory research as it relates to public health activities in partnership with various academic institutions, local, state, and federal government agencies, community based organizations, and individual community members for more than 20 years. I am a contributing author on more than 40 articles on community engagement and the community partnered participatory research model, and have presented locally, nationally, and internationally on the Community-Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) model.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.