Community EngagementWhy It Is Important- The CDC/ATSDR Committee for Community Engagement defines it as “the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people.”
- There is a consensus in the literature that engaging and supporting the empowerment of the community for community health decision-making and action is a critical element in health promotion, health protection, and disease prevention.
Our Focus- The USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness has pioneered a Rural Health Roundtable strategy that has demonstrated effectiveness in engaging and organizing diverse groups of stakeholders in rural communities to address a specific rural health issue.
- This strategy has been used successfully in a number of venues to elicit a wide variety of outcomes including improving local emergency preparedness, bioterrorism, and pandemic influenza planning; developing networks of health professionals working in the HIV/AIDS arena; initiating local capacity building processes; facilitating dialog to identify local resources and access issues; and identifying coalition building, obesity prevention, and rural disaster planning best practices and success stories.
Outcomes of Community Engagement- Identify community needs and resources.
- Share and exchange information, including best practices and lessons learned, among stakeholders.
- Build community stakeholder networks and partnerships.
- Improve communication between community members, local government, local service agencies, schools, and others.
- Educate / train community stakeholders to increase knowledge and build skills and community capacity.
- Discuss and plan action steps and strategies to address a public health issue.
- Empower local groups to plan and problem solve with existing assets.
- Facilitate an ongoing dialogue, which encourages communities to address other community issues.
- Begin working together as team to initiate changes that impact the long-term health of the community.
Opportunities for Your Community- Facilitate Rural Health Roundtables in your community, which includes identifying, recruiting and convening traditional and non-traditional stakeholders; facilitating discussions of a rural public health issue; identifying key components around this issue; and organizing stakeholders to take action with the assistance of newly established networks.
- Provide training to key stakeholders on conducting Rural Health Roundtables, providing participants with the knowledge, skills and abilities to implement this strategy in their community. This will include participation in a “mock” Roundtable around a rural health issue.
See literature on this strategy: Pennel, CL, Carpender, SK, Quiram, BJ. Rural health roundtables: a strategy for collaborative engagement in and between rural communities. Rural Remote Health. 2008 Oct-Dec;8(4):1054Since 1999, approximately seventy (70) communities have successfully used rural health roundtables to address a public health practice or preparedness issue.
Texas A&M Health Science Center
School of Rural Public Health
1266 TAMU
College Station, Texas
77843-1266
(979) 845-2387
