Content
Discussion
A More Recent
Framework
A more recent
framework developed for health promoters distinguishes between community-based
strategies and community development initiatives (Boutilier, Cleverly
and Labonte, 2000):
Community-based
strategies link programs and services to community groups. The
health issue under consideration, usually related to the prevention
of health-related risk factors (e.g., tobacco, physical inactivity),
is identified by the sponsoring agency. Interventions are implemented
according to defined timelines, and decision-making power rests
with the sponsoring organization rather than community participants.
Community
development strategies are different from community-based strategies
in several respects.
 The
problem or issue is defined by the community rather than the sponsoring
organization.
The process of planning
the community development initiative is ongoing, based on continued
negotiation between organizations and community groups, with the
community worker serving as a liaison.
Community development
emphasizes enhanced community capacity, the collective ability
of a community to control the factors affecting their health,
rather than measurable changes in health-related risk factors,
as the desired outcome.
A key principle
separating community development from other approaches to
working with communities is that the needs, problems or issues around
which a community is organized must be identified by community
members themselves.
As Minkler and
Wallerstein (1997, pp. 30-31) note:
*even though
a health education professional may borrow some principles or
methods from community organizing to help mount an AIDS organizing
effort in the community, he or she cannot be said to be doing
community development in the pure sense unless the community itself
has defined AIDS as the issue it wants to address.
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For
more information about community mobilization/ community
development strategies, including actual examples of efforts
to mobilize communities around health issues, please refer
to Module 5.
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