Community Action Plan Research Articles

The impact of a Youth Alcohol Forum: What changes for the participants?

A Youth Alcohol Forum was conducted in Perth, Western Australia, to provide the opportunity for students to learn about alcohol harm and to develop methods for reducing such harm in their community. Seventy-five Year 10 students, from 10 high schools in Perth, participated in the forum. The event consisted of a three day, peer-led residential programme where students could talk about alcohol use and harm in a non-judgemental setting and in turn access information that was of immediate practical use in minimising harms related to their own and others' use of alcohol. After the forum, project groups continued to work together to implement their community action plans. The participating students were surveyed immediately prior to the forum on their consumption patterns, their knowledge of alcohol and related harms and their attitude to alcohol issues pertinent to their age group. They were surveyed again at the conclusion of the forum on knowledge and attitudes and once again, comprehensively, six months later. Their consumption patterns were compared with the National Drug Household Survey sample of 14–19 year olds (AGB McNair, 1995; Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, 1996). Participants' knowledge and attitudes changed significantly during the course of the forum and this change was substantially preserved six months later. There was also some indication that participants did not progress to more risky consumption patterns as would be expected of young people their age. Participants knew more about alcohol and held attitudes about alcohol related issues that were more knowledge based, when followed up six months subsequent to their participation in the forum. In this regard the forum seems to have been both useful and influential for the participants. Achieving sustained change in knowledge and attitude with a brief, intense intervention, albeit with follow up, suggests that such forums can be important components in school drug education.

Participatory rural appraisal of spate irrigation systems in eastern Eritrea

In the Sheeb area in eastern Eritrea a Participatory Rural Appraisal(PRA) was carried out in two villages, one upstream and one downstreamof the ephemeral rivers Laba and Mai-ule. The objectives of the studywere to obtain a better understanding of farmer-managed spate irrigationsystems and to enable the local people to perform their own farmingsystem analysis. This paper describes the various PRA activities, suchas mapping, diagramming and ranking of problems, that were undertakenwith the participation of local people. The resource mapping revealedthat lack of water and not scarcity of land is the main constraintaffecting the development of the spate irrigation system in the Sheebarea. When there is a lack of rainfall in the highlands of Eritrea,there are only few floods per year in the Sheeb area. The developmenttrend diagrams showed that the number of floods, the food production andthe prevalence of pests vary considerably over time. The livelihooddiagrams indicated that food, fodder, and water were only availableduring part of the year. In search of these resources, the farmers havedeveloped a livelihood strategy of seasonal migration to the highlandsof Eritrea. The PRA data collected in the two villages appeared to bevery useful for the preparation of community action plans in the entireSheeb area.

Community participation in the recruitment and retention of rural doctors: methodological and logistical considerations.

Two Queensland rural communities with histories of poor general practitioner (GP) recruitment and retention participated in a process aimed at developing broadly based community action plans to recruit and retain GPs. Despite their very different physical and social characteristics, the two communities developed many similar objectives and strategies, which had the possibility of being implemented more widely. The community participation process can be both time- and cost-effective if consideration is given to a variety of methodological and logistical issues. The process is a means by which communities, Divisions of General Practice, government, academic institutions and others can work together to recruit and retain medical practitioners.

Participatory Research in Basarwa Settlements: Shifting Development Paradigms

As anthropologists, applied researchers, and action researchers, we have long explored the relationship between researcher and researched; many of us have tried to reconceptualize these roles to make informants more equal partners in the research process. In the Southern African country of Botswana, Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) have become the favored way to involve community members in applied-research. PRAs assist communities gather and document information about their surroundings, build rapport between the local community and extension officers, and plan development efforts through a series of facilitator-led activities. A PRA exercise results in a community-action plan, in which community members outline what will be done, when, how, and by whom. But while PRAs have been developed to help community members create a village profile and needs assessment, the research protocol itself tends to be a standardized "fill-in-the-blank exercise." In the most typical scenario, community members, with the guidance of outside facilitators, supply the missing information. The popularity of PRAs, coupled with this fixed, externally-driven format, raises questions about the meaning of participation in participatory research, and the degree to which community members can be expected to participate in researching their own lives. As part of my own examination of these issues, I recently co-facilitated a different model of participatory research in Botswana, in which the tools for data collection were fully designed and used by community members to research their own communities. In this article, I write about my own experiences, and those of the men and women who became participant researchers, in order to examine the power that active participation in research generates among community members and to describe the social and political dilemmas that arose from that participation.

Barriers to seeking care following school vision screening in Rochester, Minnesota.

School vision screening provides an effective way to identify children who require vision therapy, usually glasses. To benefit from screening, children with abnormal screening test results must receive follow-up eye care, but care may be delayed for months or years. This project used community focus groups in Rochester, Minn., to identify barriers that may delay seeking professional care following school vision screening. Major barriers identified included lack of community awareness about the frequency and potential effect of refractive errors in children, a parental perception of inadequate communication between schools and the parents and community, high cost of corrective lenses, limited availability of convenient eye care appointments, and adolescents reluctance to wear glasses. Program planners developed a community action plan to address the perceived barriers.

Community based intervention on adolescent risk taking: using research for community action

Objectives—To use research on adolescent risk taking behaviour as an impetus for a community to develop locally based injury prevention strategies. Design—Case study, based on a community action model and...

The Kadavu health promotion model, Fiji

The Kadavu Rural Health Project in Fiji during the period 1994-97 was an Australian Agency for International Development project designed as a potential model for rural health projects in Fiji and the Pacific. The project focused upon improving the community capacity for health development in the province of Kadavu through community development human resource development the building of infrastructure and the establishment of participatory project management systems. The projects main essential activity was providing information upon village health issues to local government and traditional decision-makers. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion was adapted by beginning with community learning based upon an adult education cycle of experience review information seeking policy development and community action planning. Village district and provincial councils were then able to develop public policies mobilize community action and create healthier village environments. Use of a bottom-up developmental approach helped to clarify roles and responsibilities identified resources and developed processes which will probably be sustained. The potential replication of this model elsewhere will be limited more by the political economic cultural and social factors in a given setting than by the model itself.

European cooperation to combat marine oil pollution

The Commission of the European Communities has been actively involved in marine pollution incidents since the Amoco Cadiz accident in 1978. The activities have been performed mainly through the Community Action Plan and by active participation in several international agreements established for dealing with cooperation between States in case of accidental pollution of the sea. In the Braer incident in January 1993, as well as in the Aegean Sea incident in December 1992, the Commission played an active role in the aspect of operational initiatives. Although no specific request was received for Task Force assistance in either incident, the Task Force crisis team in Brussels assisted the responsible national authorities on a continuous basis with the dissemination of validated information to the other member States and assisted in handling of requests for observers to go to the scene. In both incidents the Commission also provided financial support for various activities.

FACTORS RELATED TO SUCCESS IN BUSINESS RETENTION AND EXPANSION PROGRAMS

A survey of local coordinators of business retention and expansion programs is used to determine factors associated with successful programs. The most successful R&E programs go beyond short-term goals of solving firms' immediate problems, and begin a process of dialogue and coalition building among community leaders from various disciplines. The vehicle for this consensus for development is the written community action plan based on overall results of the survey of local businesses. The most successful coordinators in this survey resisted the temptation to do everything themselves and worked closely with a task force of local leaders in developing community recommendations.

Enhancing Resources for Smoking Cessation through Community Intervention: COMMIT as a Prototype

Of the 17 million smokers in North America who attempt to quit smoking each year, fewer than one in ten succeed [1, 2]. How can communities improve smokers' chances of quitting? The National Cancer Institute addresses this question through COMMIT, the Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation. COMMIT is the largest smoking intervention trial in the world, involving over 2 million people in twenty-two North American communities. The study protocol requires that the implementation of mandated interventions in each community be managed by a Community Board and at least four task forces (Health Care, Worksites and Organizations, Cessation Resources, and Public Education, including Media and Youth). Three required and three optional interventions in the COMMIT protocol relate to the availability of cessation resources and services. The Cessation Resources Task Force, composed of community volunteers, supervises implementation of these interventions at each site. The activities of each task force are integrated with the others in a community action plan. How COMMIT activities enhance the utilization of cessation resources and services and how these services fit into a community intervention is the subject of this article. Descriptions of the study design and evaluation plan, and of the community mobilization process are presented elsewhere [3, 4].

Intentional Teenage Pregnancy: A Community Diagnosis and Action Plan

Intentional Teenage Pregnancy: A Community Diagnosis and Action Plan

Plan of the European communities for dealing with pollution of the sea by oil and other hazardous substances

This paper sets the Community Action Plan in the context of existing European regional arrangements for dealing with marine pollution and identifies the unique and valued service the Commission provides in support of the Member States.