Empowering One Community at a Time for Policy, System and Environmental Changes to Impact Obesity

Abstract

<p class="Pa7"><strong>Objective: </strong>This article describes Mayors Mentoring Mayors (3M), an initiative of the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention (ArCOP), which expanded to five states to become the signature community initiative of the Mid-South Transdisciplinary Collab­orative Center (Mid-South TCC) for Health Disparities Research.</p><p class="Pa7"><strong>Methods: </strong>The 3M program is an exten­sion of the Growing Healthy Communities (GHC) program, which sought to build capacity within communities to reduce obesity by implementing policy, system and environmental (PSE) changes that support healthy living. GHC where the mayor was involved had the most significant changes toward better health. These mayors were recruited to share their successes, lessons learned, and best practices with their col­leagues through a series of Lunch & Learns. Following the GHC and 3M models, a multi-state approach to expand 3M to five additional states was developed. ArCOP partnered with the Mid-South TCC to recruit mayors in the five states.</p><p class="Pa7"><strong>Results: </strong>Five Lunch & Learn events were held across Arkansas between March and May 2015, with a total of 98 participants (40 mayors, 37 community leaders, 21 guests). Each regional Lunch & Learn had 1-2 host mayor(s) in attendance, with a total of 9 host mayors. For the 3M regional ex­pansion project, eight GHC Recognition Ap­plications from five states were submitted. Five communities, designated as Emerging, were funded to implement GHC projects.</p><p class="Pa6"><strong>Conclusion: </strong>ArCOP successfully engaged mayors, elected officials, and stakeholders who can influence policy across Arkansas as well as in an additional five states in the Mid-South TCC region to implement obesity PSE prevention strategies.</p><p class="Pa6"><em>Ethn Dis. </em>2017;27(Suppl 1):347-354; doi:10.18865/ed.27.S1.347.</p>

Understanding the Development, Evaluation, and Sustainability of Community Health Networks Using Social Network Analysis: A Scoping Review

“…1,2,[7][8][9] Unfortunately, multiorganizational partnerships to create such networks can be difficult to establish and sustain. 6 Currently in communities across the US, multiple voluntary organizations geographically co-located share the same clients, resources, and information. Often, they have differing values, norms and ideologies-all which impact service coordination and collaboration.…”

“…1,2 Community health coalitions are effective at creating collaborative inter-organizational networks to innovatively address wide-ranging issues and enhance community capacity for health. [3][4][5][6] Population health needs can only be addressed if communities work together. 1,2,[7][8][9] Unfortunately, multiorganizational partnerships to create such networks can be difficult to establish and sustain.…”

“…The numbers of organizations in the networks studied ranged from 10 to 868, with analysis occurring at local, regional, and national levels. The majority (48) focused upon specific issues, the most common being mental health (13), followed by violence/injury/abuse (7), reproduction (7), cancer (7), and human immunodeficiency virus (6). Twenty-three were generally focused upon health promotion and disease prevention, and 15 of the networks addressed social determinants of health (SDoH)/disparities.…”

Addressing the Gap Between Academic Research and Grassroots Public Health Practice: Supporting Policy, Systems, and Environmental Changes in Rural Communities

“…PSE strategies have the potential to create broad-reaching sustainable health impacts (Bunnell etet alal., 2012; Kelly etet alal., 2021; Rohan etet alal., 2019). PSE strategies have been used in efforts to improve obesity rates (Betancourt etet alal., 2017), prevent chronic disease (Bunnell etet alal., 2012), and reduce cancer rates (Townsend etet alal., 2019). Examples of successfully implemented health promotion policies include instituting a healthy food donation policy in food pantries and creating shared-use policies at school playgrounds.…”

“One community at a time”: promoting community resilience in the face of natural hazards and public health challenges

“…Other studies have concentrated on the value of local expertise, cultural practices, and traditional coping mechanisms in fostering resilience, contending that these elements can increase the efficacy of DRR and public health preparedness efforts [5,6]. The "One Community at a Time" approach includes institutional and governance considerations [7]. According to studies [8,9], community people must be involved in the development and execution of programs to enhance resilience.…”