Building on Leadership and Social Capital to Create Change in 2 Urban Communities

Abstract

There has been an appeal to reduce health inequities by increasing community involvement and social capital. Poder es Salud/Power for Health is a community-based participatory prevention research project that seeks to address health disparities in the African American and Latino communities by enhancing community-level social capital. We provide specific examples of how this intervention uses community health workers and popular education to reduce language and cultural barriers and enhance community social capital. Although the communities share fundamental challenges related to health disparities, the ways in which the Latino and African American communities identify health concerns, create solutions, and think about social capital vary. Members of the project are working together to identify opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration.

Studying and Addressing Urban Immigrant Restaurant Worker Health and Safety in San Francisco’s Chinatown District: A CBPR Case Study

“…3,[15][16][17][18] Briefly, these include: (1) helping ensure that the research question comes from, or is of genuine importance to, the local community; (2) increasing trust and credibility with the community, which can in turn improve participation in research; (3) enhancing the cultural acceptability of study instruments, often improving their validity; (4) improving the design and implementation of interventions, increasing the likelihood of success; (5) improving data interpretation; (6) identifying and using new channels for dissemination; (7) helping translate the findings into action that will benefit the community; and (8) building individual and community capacity and leaving behind a community better able to study and address other health and social issues of local concern. Each of these is illustrated in the case study below.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] An orientation to research, rather than a particular research method, CBPR is concisely defined as "systematic inquiry, with the participation of those affected by the problem, for the purposes of education and action or effecting change". 7 Unlike most investigatordriven approaches, CBPR emphasizes equitable engagement of all partners throughout the research process, from problem definition through data collection and analysis, to dissemination and use of findings to help effect change.…”

“…6 Traditional "outside expert-driven" research approaches also frequently have proven ill-suited to work with urban immigrant populations, whose members may be distrustful of research and fearful of disclosing information or participating in interventions due to immigration status, fear of retaliation, or earlier life experiences. 1,4,6,14 In this article, we highlight the value that may be added to urban immigrant health research when CBPR is utilized. We then describe the Chinatown Restaurant Worker Health and Safety Study, an ecologic CBPR project undertaken in San Francisco and use it to illustrate each of CBPR's potential benefits.…”

Extending collaborations for knowledge translation: lessons from the community-based participatory research literature

“…Studies identified strategies that facilitated this leadership, such as brainstorming, simulations, and problem-solving activities (Farquhar, Michael and Wiggins, 2005). These activities are related to the premise that the community knows a great deal about their situation (Farquhar et al, 2005;Metzler et al, 2003).…”

Por un futuro mejor: programa de promoción de la salud para Afrodescendientes

“…Donde los participantes de la comunidad se consoliden convirtiéndose en actores determinantes dentro de su misma comunidad, al trasformar y edificar su entorno y lograr de construir y reconstruir la realidad deseada (10) . La IAP puede ser una herramienta para reconocer mejor el capital social presente en una comunidad y asegurar un real proceso participativo (11,12) , donde el empoderamiento de la comunidad, a su vez, favorezca la competencia cultural de las iniciativas de promoción y, de esa forma, su impacto sea real y de potencial sustentabilidad (13) .…”