Abstract
Abstract Municipal public health planning (MPHP) endeavours to enhance community participation in public health decision making. A study of community participation of municipal public health planning projects in Queensland, Australia highlights that while community participation is an important element of the planning, the focus is also on developing mechanisms to ensure inter-sectoral collaborations and placing public health issues on the agenda of decision makers. With modest funding and the breadth of these focuses, MPHP is limited in directly supporting disadvantaged groups in the community to engage in participatory activities. The challenge can be to engage all the relative perspectives of the community, particularly if it is typical of a group to demonstrate non- participation in whole of community group activities. Success in the area of engaging with target groups was found by having the time and project staff to identify and access an advocate or advocacy forum to represent a voice for the group. This highlights the importance of representative and advocacy roles in the community. Key words: public health, community participation, community advocacy, health planning, municipal
Highlights
The Queensland framework of Municipal Public Health Planning (MPHP) is based on the WHO Healthy Cities model
Bracht and Tsouros (1990) and Rifkin (1990) have proposed that defining community participation requires establishing the specific who, what and how concepts of the given participation. In support of this when stakeholders were asked an open question about their understanding of community participation, this study found that it was instinctive to consider who should be involved, what form this involvement should take and what was needed to achieve this definition of who and what
Community participation in MPHP that emerged was connected to having the opportunity to voice an opinion and influence decision-making and to ensuring that this opportunity should be open to anyone who has something to say or a desire to voice an opinion
Summary
The Queensland framework of Municipal Public Health Planning (MPHP) is based on the WHO Healthy Cities model. It aims to address inequality in health and urban poverty; the needs of vulnerable groups; participatory governance; and the social, economic and environmental determinants of health (WHO, www.euro.who.int, 2011) This emphasis resonates with the Australian government’s vision of a socially inclusive society ‘one in which all Australians feel valued and have the opportunity to participate fully in the life of society’ (www.socialinclusion.gov.au, 2011). The WHO Healthy Cities model is a recognised approach to strengthening community participation (WHO, 1999); when following the framework in real life, the goals of the model, namely intersectoral approaches, community participation and placing health issues on the urban agenda, have not been achieved or have had limitations (Baum, 2008; Harphan et al, 2001; Strobl and Bruce, 2000; Low in Chu and Simpson, 1994)
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