Assessing the capacity of health departments to engage in community-based participatory public health英文资料.pdf

 RESEARCH AND PRACTICE  Assessing the Capacity of Health Departments to Engage in Community-Based Participatory Public Health | Edith Parker, DrPH, Lewis H. Margolis, MD, MPH, Eugenia Eng, DrPH, and Carlos Henríquez-Roldán, PhD Public health has always been thought of as fo- Objectives. We created indicators of local public health agency capacity to engage in cusing on the health of populations, but criti- community-based participatory public health. cism has risen in recent years about the domi- Methods. We sent a survey of 27 items reflecting aspects of community-based partici- nance in this field of scientific paradigms and of patory public health to 429 employees in 4 local health departments. Two thirds (n=282) research and practice methods that emphasize responded. We performed a factor analysis to identify components of community-based par- the individual as the unit of practice and analy- ticipatory practice. sis.1,2 Along with this criticism has come the call Results. We identified 4 factors: (1) the agency’s and (2) the individual employee’s skills for more of a community-based participatory in working with community groups and minority populations, (3) the extent and frequency approach to public health practice and research of agency networking, and (4) community participation in health department planning. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that it is possible to measure the competencies from public health institutions and scholars—a needed by health department staff to engage in community-based participatory public call that re