Lecture 4: Community action Flashcards
Define Health education
Influencing and informing individual receivers
What is community action? (Focussed on)
- A broader perspective on health promotion
- Focused on community in everyday life settings
- Focused on actual change trough action
What is community action research?
= Research using principles of community action
- Collective efforts directed towards increasing community control over determinants of health, and thereby improving health
- Requires participation of the ‘target’ population
- Involves developing and implementing multiple coherent interventions
- Focusing simultaneously on individual and community as a whole (different levels)
- Need for collaboration of different disciplines and sectors
Arguments in favor of a community approach
- Uses an integrated approach to deal with the complexity of adressing health problems
- Is more effective in reaching disadvantaged groups and areas, and thereby may help reduce socio-economic health differences
- Can strengthen a setting or community as a whole by participation an cooperation of community members (increased social capital and stonger social cohesion = better lifestyle and health)
What is the aim of Community action research?
What are the issues with intervention studies?
To meet complex health challenges
Intervention studies:
- Demand gap (problem to research)
- Implementation gap (research to implementation)
= lack of communication
What is transdisciplinairy research?
A from of learning and problem solving involving cooperation among different parts of society and academia to meet complex challenges of society
Background Communication action research
Freire’s critical pedagogy (1960s)
- Emancipation through education
- “Pedagogy of the oppressed” (1970)
- Participatory projects in developing countries
WHO’s ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986)
5 Elements
Empowerment as prerequiste for health and QoL
- Strengthen community action
- Develop personal skills
- Create supportive environments
- Reorient health services
- Enable, Mediate, Advocate
Community can refer to…
- Geographical boundaries
- Relationships and interactions between community members
Difference with setting:
people communicate with each other, share norms and values, and experience a sense of community or connectedness, which is not necessarily the case in a setting)
Other aspects:
- Dynamic
- Self-indentification
- Can be virtual
Setting refers to…
A physically recognizable structure with set boundaries
E.g., school, club, hospital, company
“Community-based”
1. Key metaphor
2. Orientation
3. Primary health promotion strategy
4. Role of professional
5. Role of participation by target group
6. Control over resources and ownership
1. Key metaphor
- Individual
2. Orientation
- Top-down
- Problem solving
3. Primary health promotion strategy
- Health education
- Better facilities
- Lifestyle change
- Media
4. Role of professional
- Key position
- Central to decision making
5. Role of participation by target group
- Better offer and use of facilities
- Gaining support
6. Control over resources and ownership
- Low
“Cummunity development”
1. Key metaphor
2. Orientation
3. Primary health promotion strategy
4. Role of professional
5. Role of participation by target group
6. Control over resources and ownership
1. Key metaphor
- Collective action
2. Orientation
- Bottom-up
- Strengthening capacity
3. Primary health promotion strategy
- Strengthening of community and control
- Increase in resources and capacities
- Economic and political change
4. Role of professional
- Tool (partner)
5. Role of participation by target group
- Increase of control and authority
- Improvement of social structure
6. Control over resources and ownership
- High
What are the four ‘working principles’ of the community approach?
- Participation
- The social network approach
- Intersectoral cooperation
- Alignment with the existing situation
Participation can be defined as…
… a process via which community members are involved in making decisions about programmes that influence their health or health behaviour
(Active involvement in all phases: problem analysis, needs assessment, priority setting and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions)
The social network approach entails…
1. Strengthening existing relationships
2. Developing new nework functions
3. Creating new social networks (via support groups, self-help groups, buddy system)
= increases ability for collective action
