PLACE MATTERS: Transforming Lessons from the Field into Blueprints for Action

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ initiative, PLACE MATTERS has worked to build the capacity of leaders and communities to identify and address social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape health and health inequities.  Using a place-based approach, these teams seek to address issues in their communities such as pockets of deep poverty, residential segregation, as well as significant education and health disparities. 

Each community faces different challenges, political environments and has local assets upon which to build.  The great asset of the PLACE MATTERS community is the diversity of thought and experience across teams, which the blueprinting process captures.

Blueprinting is a condensed working time that brings together subject matter experts, innovators and other stakeholders in a problem solving process. Starting with a specific problem statement and theory of change, and through a facilitated process, it ends with the creation of a blueprint of strategies to solve the problem. Because the time allotted is intentionally limited, it encourages innovation in the initial product or “blueprint” that can then be refined through further discussions and subgroup work.  

This panel presentation will debut the resulting blueprints- Mobilizing Communities for Healthy and Successful Youth: A Blueprint for Action, Moving a Community from Cohesion to Mobilization, Making the Case to Policymakers that PLACE MATTERS: Influencing Equitable Policy and Community Strategies to End Racism and Support Racial Healing-  allowing teams to share their knowledge, experiences, key strategies and tactics, which can be tailored to address health inequities in other communities  place-based work.