329589
Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments: Creating a public health action plan to translate research to action and policy change
Amy J. Schulz, PhD,
Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Guy Williams,
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ), Detroit, MI
Kristina Rice, MSW, MUP,
Health Behavior & Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Introduction: Developing public health action plans to inform policies to reduce air pollution and mitigate their adverse effects, with particular attention to vulnerable communities, is essential to addressing persistent health inequities. Methods: Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments (CA-PHE) brings together three longstanding community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships affiliated with the Detroit Urban Research Center, a long-standing CBPR partnership established in 1995. CA-PHE aims to increase knowledge about factors influencing exposure to air pollution and health effects, translate findings into a public health action plan, and implement innovative policy and practice solutions, with leadership from community-based organizations, to reduce pollutant exposure and mitigate adverse health impacts in Detroit. Results: We describe leadership roles played by community-based organizations, including: identifying key priority areas for new research; informing strategies for compiling and synthesizing information to guide a public health action planning process; and defining components of the public health action plan. Challenges and opportunities, as well as lessons learned will be provided regarding: development of an effective partnership; translation, dissemination and implementation of research to inform innovative policy and practice; engagement of key players involved with local initiatives; and identification and prioritization of multiple potential mitigation strategies. Conclusions: CBPR partnerships that engage community, academic and practice partners bring multiple resources together to create unique and innovative policy and practice solutions to local public health issues. Defining clear and mutually agreed upon roles for all partners is essential to supporting the potential and power of community-academic partnerships to promote community-based public health.
Learning Areas:
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Learning Objectives:
Explain the relationship between the Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments partnership and the Detroit Urban Research Center.
Describe how a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, involving community, academic, practice and planning partners, is used to create a public health action planning process to inform policy and practice solutions to address air pollution and its adverse health effects in Detroit.
Identify challenges, opportunities and lessons learned about the potential power of CBPR partnership efforts to develop a public health action plan and policy solutions related to air quality and health, in the context of an urban environment.
Keyword(s): Public Health Policy, Community-Based Partnership & Collaboration
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and have been engaged in CBPR to examine the social determinants of health for over a decade. I am a founding member of the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center, founder and Principal Investigator of the Healthy Environments Partnership, and Co-Principal Investigator of Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments.
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.
