Health Equity: 06/24/11

Friday, June 24, 2011

[EQ] The Community Tool Box - essential skills for building healthy communities

The Community Tool Box Bringing Solutions to Light

Work Group for Community Health and Development
University of Kansas - 2011

The Community Tool Box is a global resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities.
Promoting community health and development by connecting people, ideas and resources

English:
Available online at: http://bit.ly/lMvFse

Spanish:
URL: http://bit.ly/kEY9wF Caja de Herramientas Comunitarias: Recursos prácticos para su trabajo

Here there are the list of 6 Chapters through which you can reach nearly 300 different sections providing practical, step-by-step guidance in community-building skills. Other tools can be located from the purple tabs at the top of this page.

Part A. Models for Promoting Community Health and Development: Gateways to the Tools (Chapters 1 - 2)

· Chapter 1. Our Model for Community Change and Improvement

· Chapter 2. Other Models for Promoting Community Health and Development

Contains an overview of the CTB (Chapter 1, Section 1) and frameworks for guiding, supporting and evaluating the works of community and system change.

Part B. Community Assessment, Agenda Setting, and Choice of Broad Strategies (Chapters 3 - 5)

· Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources

· Chapter 4. Getting Issues on the Public Agenda

· Chapter 5. Choosing Strategies to Promote Community Health and Development

Contains information about how to assess community needs and resources (e.g. conducting listening sessions, analyzing problems) how to get issues on the public agenda (e.g., gaining public support), and how to choose broad strategies to promote community health and development (e.g., building coalitions).

Part C. Promoting Interest and Participation in Initiatives (Chapters 6 - 7)

· Chapter 6. Promoting Interest in Community Issues

· Chapter 7. Encouraging Involvement in Community Work

Contains information about how to promote interest in an issue (e.g., persuasion, press releases, and newsletters) and how to encourage involvement (e.g., among diverse groups).

Part D. Developing a Strategic Plan, Organizational Structure, and Training System(Chapters 8 - 12)

· Chapter 8. Developing a Strategic Plan

· Chapter 9. Developing an Organizational Structure for the Initiative

· Chapter 10. Hiring and Training Key Staff of Community Organizations

· Chapter 11. Recruiting and Training Volunteers

· Chapter 12. Providing Training and Technical Assistance

Contains information about developing a strategic plan (e.g., vision, mission, action plan) and organizational structure (e.g., bylaws, board of directors) and hiring and training staff, recruiting and training volunteers, and providing technical assistance.

Part E. Leadership, Management, and Group Facilitation (Chapters 13 - 16)

· Chapter 13. Orienting Ideas in Leadership

· Chapter 14. Core Functions in Leadership

· Chapter 15. Becoming an Effective Manager

· Chapter 16. Group Facilitation and Problem-Solving

Contains information about the core functions of leadership (e.g., building relationships, influencing people), management (e.g., providing supervision and support), and group facilitation (e.g., leading meetings).

Part F. Analyzing Community Problems and Designing and Adapting Community Interventions (Chapters 17 - 19)

· Chapter 17. Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions

· Chapter 18. Deciding Where to Start

· Chapter 19. Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions

Contains information about analyzing community problems (e.g. thinking critically), designing an intervention (e.g. identifying those who can benefit and help), and choosing and adapting interventions for different cultures and communities.

Part G. Implementing Promising Community Interventions (Chapters 20 - 26)

· Chapter 20. Providing Information and Enhancing Skills

· Chapter 21. Enhancing Support, Incentives, and Resources

· Chapter 22. Youth Mentoring Programs

· Chapter 23. Modifying Access, Barriers, and Opportunties

· Chapter 24. Improving Services

· Chapter 25. Changing Policies

· Chapter 26. Changing the Physical and Social Environment

Contains information on illustrative interventions using the strategies of providing information and enhancing skills, enhancing support and resources, youth mentoring, modifying access and barriers, improving services, changing policies, and changing the physical and social environment.

Part H. Cultural Competence, Spirituality, and the Arts and Community Building (Chapters 27 - 29)

· Chapter 27. Cultural Competence in a Multicultural World

· Chapter 28. Spirituality and Social Action (this chapter is under construction)

· Chapter 29. The Arts and Community Building: Celebrating, Preserving, and Transforming Community Life (this chapter is under construction)

Contains information on building cultural competence in a multicultural world, spirituality and community action, and the arts and community building.

Part I. Organizing for Effective Advocacy (Chapters 30 - 35)

· Chapter 30. Principles of Advocacy

· Chapter 31. Conducting Advocacy Research

· Chapter 32. Providing Encouragement and Education

· Chapter 33. Conducting a Direct Action Campaign

· Chapter 34. Media Advocacy

· Chapter 35. Responding to Counterattacks

Contains information on principles of advocacy (e.g., recognizing allies and opponents), conducting advocacy research, providing encouragement and education, conducting a direct action campaign (e.g., personal testimony letters), media advocacy, and responding to opposition.

Part J. Evaluating Community Programs and Initiatives (Chapters 36 - 39)

· Chapter 36. Introduction to Evaluation

· Chapter 37. Operations in Evaluating Community Interventions

· Chapter 38. Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives

· Chapter 39. Using Evaluation to Understand and Improve the Initiative

Contains information on developing a plan for evaluation, methods for evaluation, and using evaluation to understand and improve the initiative.

Part K. Maintaining Quality and Rewarding Accomplishments (Chapters 40 - 41)

· Chapter 40. Maintaining Quality Performance

· Chapter 41. Rewarding Accomplishments

Contains information on achieving and maintaining quality performance, obtaining and using feedback from clients, arranging celebrations, providing incentives to staff and volunteers, holding awards ceremonies, and honoring colleagues and community champions.

Part L. Generating, Managing and Sustaining Financial Resources (Chapters 42 - 44)

· Chapter 42. Getting Grants and Financial Resources

· Chapter 43. Managing Finances

· Chapter 44. Investing in Community Resources

Contains information on writing a grant application, planning for financial sustainability, preparing an annual budget, accounting basics, contracting for service and establishing a micro-grants program for your community.

Part M. Social Marketing and Institutionalization of the Initiative (Chapters 45 - 46)

· Chapter 45. Social Marketing of Successful Components of the Initiative

· Chapter 46. Planning for Long-Term Institutionalization

Contains information on conducting a social marketing effort (e.g., promoting awareness, interest and behavior change), and planning for the long-term sustainability of the effort (e.g., becoming a line item in an existing budget).

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[EQ] Global Health: What it has been so far, what it should be, and what it could become

Global Health:
What it has been so far, what it should be, and what it could become

Studies in Health Services Organisation and Policy
Department of Public Health. Editors are Guy Kegels, Vincent De Brouwere and Bart Criel
The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, 2011

Available online PDF [237p.] at: http://bit.ly/iXTNGd

"…….Using international political economy to explore what global health has been so far, using international human rights law to explore what global health should be and using global health diplomacy to explore what global health could become, this paper argues for a global social contract that would clarify mutual responsibilities beyond borders………………."

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"Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members".
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[EQ] Maximizing the Impacts of your Research: A Handbook for Social Scientists

Maximizing the Impacts of your Research:
A Handbook for Social Scientists

LSE Public Policy Group

Available online PDF [298p.] at: http://bit.ly/jNmi5r

“……….For the past year a team of academics based at the London School of Economics, the University of Leeds and Imperial College London have been working on the Impact of Social Sciences project aimed at developing precise methods for measuring and evaluating the impact of research in the public sphere. We believe our data will be of interest to all UK universities to better capture and track the impacts of their social science research and applications work.

Part of our task is to develop guidance for colleagues interested in this field. In the past, there has been no one source of systematic advice on how to maximize the academic impacts of your research in terms of citations and other measures of influence. And almost no sources at all have helped researchers to achieve greater visibility and impacts with audiences outside the university. Instead researchers have had to rely on informal knowledge and picking up random hints and tips here and there from colleagues, and from their own personal experience.

This Handbook remedies this key gap and, we hope, will help researchers achieving a more professional and focused approach to their research from the outset. It provides a large menu of sound and evidence-based advice and guidance on how to ensure that your work achieves its maximum visibility and influence with both academic and external audiences. As with any menu, readers need to pick and choose the elements that are relevant for them. We provide detailed information on what constitutes good practice in expanding the impact of social science research. We also survey a wide range of new developments, new tools and new techniques that can help make sense of a rapidly changing field………….”

Contents

Executive Summary

Introduction What are research impacts

PART A MAXIMIZING THE ACADEMIC IMPACTS OF RESEARCH

Chapter 1 What shapes the citing of academic publications?

1.1 Variations in citations rates across disciplines

1.2 Academic careers and the accumulation of citations

1.3 Career trajectories and the development of capabilities and publications.

Chapter 2 Knowing your strengths: using citation tracking systems

2.1 How distinctive is your author name?

2.2 Orthodox citation-tracking systems

2.3 Internet-based citation-tracking systems

2.4 Comparing conventional and internet citations tracking systems

Chapter 3 Key measures of academic influence

3.1 Assessing how well an author is cited

3.2 Assessing how far journals and books are cited

3.3 Who cites a little or a lot: Hub and authority patterns

Chapter 4 Getting better cited

4.1 Writing informative titles, abstracts and book blurbs

4.2 The issues around self-citation

4.3 Working with co-authors and research teams

PART B MAXIMIZING RESEARCH IMPACTS BEYOND THE ACADEMY

Chapter 5 The origins and patterning of external research impacts

5.1 Types of scholarship within disciplines and external impacts

5.2 The role of joined-up scholarship

5.3 Understanding the impacts interface

5.4 How far do academics and researchers undertake activities likely to generate external impacts?

Chapter 6 Is there an impacts gap from academic work to external impacts? How might it have arisen? How might it be reduced?
Chapter 7 Understanding how researchers achieve external impacts

Chapter 8 Understanding, tracking and comparing external impacts for organizations

9.1 Developing an impacts file for individual academics

9.2 Reappraising events programmes

9.3 Building improved management of ‘customer relationships’

9. 4 Moving some version of all closed-web published research onto the open web

9.5 Improving professional communication: starting multi-author blogs

9.6 Working better in networks

Methodological Annex: the PPG dataset

Bibliography

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[EQ] Environmental burden of disease associated with inadequate housing

Environmental burden of disease associated with inadequate housing

WHO European Region - 2011

Edited by: Braubach, M., Jacobs, D.E., Ormandy, D.

Available online PDF [237p.] at: http://bit.ly/mElIw4

“…….Poverty, poor housing, and poor health are usually linked, and this means that it is difficult to measure health gains from improvements to housing conditions alone. Although there is a need for more sound evidence of the health gains associated with housing interventions, the chapters of this report have shown that inadequate housing conditions are directly and indirectly linked to negative health outcomes.

Inadequate housing conditions most often affect the less wealthy and the disadvantaged, and are therefore most often suffered by the more vulnerable population groups. In addition, those who make the most use of, and most demands on, housing are the very young, the elderly, and the sick, and these are population subgroups most vulnerable to environmental risks. Satisfactory, safe and healthy housing should therefore be a basic requirement for any society.

The environmental burden of disease attributable to inadequate housing in Europe thus more than justifies the introduction of health based housing policies and actions as a means to achieve better housing, and provides clear evidence that housing is an important public health issue.

Housing strategies and policies are complex and include planning and construction to residential use followed by improvement, renovation and reconstruction. This means that strategies and policies for healthy housing need to be comprehensive and need to involve a wide range of professions…..”

Content

Introduction

Indoor dampness and mould problems in homes and asthma onset in children

Housing conditions and home injury

Household crowding and tuberculosis

Indoor cold and mortality

Traffic noise exposure and ischaemic heart disease

Indoor radon and lung cancer

Residential second-hand smoke exposure and lower respiratory infections asthma, heart disease and lung cancer

Health effects of lead in housing

Household carbon monoxide poisoning

Formaldehyde and respiratory symptoms in children

Indoor smoke from solid fuel use

Housing quality and mental health

Housing improvements and their health effects

Quantifying the economic cost of unhealthy housing – a case study from England

Conclusions and Perspectives

Policy implications

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