Open AccessCommunities of Color Creating Healthy Environments to Combat Childhood Obesity
Author(s) -
Andrew M. Subica,
Cheryl Grills,
Jason A. Douglas,
Sandra Villanueva
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
american journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.284
H-Index - 264
eISSN - 1541-0048
pISSN - 0090-0036
DOI - 10.2105/ajph.2015.302887
Subject(s) - community organizing , health promotion , health equity , public health , ethnic group , social determinants of health , poverty , community health , community organization , population health , environmental health , population , grassroots , childhood obesity , gerontology , public relations , political science , medicine , obesity , overweight , nursing , politics , law
Ethnic and racial health disparities present an enduring challenge to community-based health promotion, which rarely targets their underlying population-level determinants (e.g., poverty, food insecurity, health care inequity). We present a novel 3-lens prescription for using community organizing to treat these determinants in communities of color based on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Communities Creating Healthy Environments initiative, the first national project to combat childhood obesity in communities of color using community organizing strategies. The lenses--Social Justice, Culture-Place, and Organizational Capacity-Organizing Approach--assist health professional-community partnerships in planning and evaluating community organizing-based health promotion programs. These programs activate community stakeholders to alter their community's disease-causing, population-level determinants through grassroots policy advocacy, potentially reducing health disparities affecting communities of color.