Open AccessUtilization of Positive Deviance into Research Activity for Community Health
Author(s) -
Harumi Bando,
Masami Mizutani
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
asian community health nursing research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2655-8629
pISSN - 2654-2900
DOI - 10.29253/achnr.2019.1124
Subject(s) - positive deviance , deviance (statistics) , community health , community practice , public relations , population , psychology , social psychology , medicine , political science , nursing , public health , environmental health , computer science , machine learning , pharmacy
The Positive Deviance (PD) approach believes that in every community there exist individuals or groups, who without any extra resources, practice uncommon behaviors that offer better solutions to addressing problems in a community. PD is a community-driven change approach that encourages community members to discover their own assets, strengths, and wisdom to solve a local problem. The purpose of this activity report is to describe the lessons we learned about PD during a visit with pioneering global researchers and practitioners of positive deviance in the United States in September, 2018. Our key learning included: discovering “uncommon” behaviors which are already practiced by community members, and are thus actionable and more acceptable to community members; investigating positive deviants at many levels i.e., among health providers, community leaders, and the ordinary population; and the importance of designing, from the very beginning, a project that invites and engages all community members who through ownership can sustain impact.