Community Action Plan Research Articles

Heat islands: understanding and mitigating heat in urban areas

What is a Heat Island? * Causes of the Heat Island * Measuring and Modelling Heat Islands * From Heat Islands to Cool Communities * All About Cool Roofing * All About Cool Paving * Cooling with Trees and Vegetation * Community Benefits from Heat Island Mitigation * Cool Community Action Plan * Index

Giving Voice: Instigating Debate On Issues Of Citizenship, Participation And Accountability

While there is a near unanimity on the need for participation there is yet no such agreement on the type and degree of participation to be adopted in a particular project. One thing that has never being doubt is the fact that local people have not being accorded their rightful recognition and respect by most intervention agencies hence the failure of some projects. So how does a project which seeks to address the issues of Citizenship, participation, and Accountability using of variety of participatory methodologies ranging from Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussion, Theatre for Development and Community Action Plan fare? This is especially against the backdrop of a multi –ethnic, multi –religious and politically complex society as Nigeria. This paper seeks to examine the use of these methodologies highlighting issues drawn out, the successes and limitations of the findings for future research. The research concludes that as effective as the methods used appeared to be, there were a lot of questions and issues unanswered beyond the immediate mandate of the project which begs for attention in order for the communities to move towards genuine development and stop shadow chasing and open display of sometimes misplaced aggression Journal of Philosophy and Culture Vol. 3 (1) 2006: pp. 174-197

Giving voice: instigating debate on issues of citizenship, participation, and accountability

While there is a near unanimity on the need for participation there is yet no such agreement on the type and degree of participation to be adopted in a particular project. One thing that has never being doubt is the fact that local people have not being accorded their rightful recognition and respect by most intervention agencies hence the failure of some projects. So how does a project which seeks to address the issues of Citizenship, participation, and Accountability using of variety of participatory methodologies ranging from Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussion, Theatre for Development and Community Action Plan fare? This is especially against the backdrop of a multi –ethnic, multi –religious and politically complex society as Nigeria. This paper seeks to examine the use of these methodologies highlighting issues drawn out, the successes and limitations of the findings for future research. The research concludes that as effective as the methods used appeared to be, there were a lot of questions and issues unanswered beyond the immediate mandate of the project which begs for attention in order for the communities to move towards genuine development and stop shadow chasing and open display of sometimes misplaced aggression.

A Cock and Bull Story?--Problems with the Protection of Animal Welfare in EU Law and Some Proposed Solutions

This article seeks to highlight defects in the EU's protection of animal welfare standards and proposes methods of addressing these defects. The first section examines the Protocol on the protection and welfare of animals, and the provision of Article 30 EC referring to the life and health of animals. The article highlights how both of these provisions have been interpreted in ways, which have made them, respectively, ineffective and unsuitable for the purposes of protecting animal welfare. The article then looks at possible methods of strengthening the protection of animal welfare within EU law, with particular focus on the proposed addition of an article on animal welfare through the Lisbon Treaty, should it be ratified. Finally, the article discusses the adoption of the Community Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals as the most recent tangible development advancing the protection of animal welfare throughout the EU.

A Comprehensive Action Plan Information System: A Tool for Tracking and Mapping Quality of Life Action Implementation and Planning

Since its inception, the Community-University Institute for Social Research (CUISR) has been involved in a participatory process aimed at understanding the quality of life in Saskatoon. Informed by the results of Quality of Life (QoL) survey in 2001 and by a list of QoL action priorities from a community forum, the CUISR QoL module set out to survey community work on QoL action planning and implementation. In collaboration with a steering committee of community-based professionals, CUISR developed a methodology for managing and analyzing QoL initiatives related to community action implementation and planning. The Community Action Plan Information System (CAPIS) is the result of this process. CAPIS is a compendium, an analysis, and a purposive contextualization of QoL actions and recommendations from collaborative action plan documents, focused on the Saskatoon community. This paper provides a detailed examination of the concept and components of the Comprehensive Action Plan Information System (CAPIS), as well as the process and outcomes of a sampling of the QoL statement analysis and mapping project. The paper concludes by projecting how the CAPIS could evolve into a fully operational QoL strategic action plan and gap indicator, providing the foundation for a knowledge based, informed, reporting mechanism on the state and evolution of QoL action and policy.

Perspectives of animal welfare at farm and group level: Introduction and overview

If we are to bring about improvements in animal welfare, animal welfare assessment is the first step towards sustainable improvements, followed by the identification of risk factors and subsequent interventions. Largely driven by an increased public interest, which is accompanied by political strategies such as the Community Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals 2006-2010 (Commission of the EC 2006), the science of animal welfare assessment has developed considerably since the 1st International Workshop on Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group level held in 1999 in Copenhagen (Sørensen & Sandøe 2001). This is reflected in major research initiatives at national and international level and in the continuously increasing number of participants at the workshops.

Komunikasi dan Pembangunan Partisipatif

A participatory development philosophy has shifted the traditional linear development. Through the new development principles, hopefully, members of village might actively participate in development process. The program called Community Action Plan (CAP) based on community participation releases document such as Mid-term Development Plan on the level of village. Communication system is needed to help people transforming their goals, values, and cultural beliefs into the plan.

Ten best practices, eight social rights: creating social justice for children and families standards and benchmarks for Social Justice Community Action Plans (SJCAPs)

This article uses a number of the outcomes of the United Nations Decade for the Elimination of Poverty (1997-2006) to make the case for the development of Social Justice Community Action Plans by national and subnational public authorities. SJCAPs would encompass the promotion of equality and equity, the reduction of poverty, the reduction of non-economic inequalities, the eradication of discrimination in all its forms and the enjoyment of all fundamental human rights and freedoms by all citizens. The article provides 10 practices or benchmarks with which to guide and/or evaluate such planning processes and the content of plans that may be developed. The article sets out the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights draft guidelines on what constitutes poverty and the eight core social rights which governments should be obligated to ensure are enjoyed by all citizens. The article is intended to contribute constructively to the growing internationalisation of social policy analysis and practice in the UK. Together with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child this has the potential to make a base of social justice for the fifth of children in the UK who have been and are being raised in poverty. Government child poverty targets for 2005 have not been met. The UK’s track record on child poverty and the implications of child poverty remains poor and is inconsistent with the rhetoric of equality of opportunity promoted by New Labour.

Allies Community Health Workers: Bridging the Gap

Allies Against Asthma coalitions each employ a community health worker (CHW) program as part of its community action plan. The structure and management of CHW programs vary in response to the resources and needs of the local community, as do the roles and characteristics of the CHWs hired. All programs utilize CHWs to provide community-based education and/or outreach to community members, primarily in their homes. Using an asthma action plan, most Allies CHW programs function as an extension of and link to the clinician, providing basic asthma education and care coordination in a supportive, family-friendly setting, context, and location. Community health workers rely heavily on relationship building and family empowerment to assist families in improving asthma control. Working within a coalition framework helps integrate the CHW program into other services and resources in the community. As participants in coalition activities, CHWs often bring an important and meaningful viewpoint to the coalition.

Improving Quality of Care and Promoting Health Care System Change: The Role of Community-Based Coalitions

As part of their community action plans, the Allies Against Asthma coalitions have developed efforts to improve quality of care and promote health care system change. All the coalitions have used an interdisciplinary collaborative approach to design these strategies and demonstrated a range of intervention approaches appropriate to their local context and circumstances. The coalitions' collective experience suggests that coalitions provide three key forces for quality improvement and change that may be lacking in the current fragmented U.S. health care system--motivation to change the status quo, integration across systems, and accountability for results. The collaborative and empowering processes that a coalition model encourages and the direct advocacy opportunity provided to the consumer appear to bring these forces into play.

A Community-Driven Action Plan to Eliminate Breast and Cervical Cancer Disparity: Successes and Limitations

The objective of Alabama Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health 2010 is to implement and evaluate a community action plan (CAP) developed by a diverse coalition to reduce breast and cervical cancer screening disparities between African American and White women. The CAP entailed (1) establishing a core working group (CWG) in each county, (2) training CWG members to promote screenings, and (3) providing coalition members with technical assistance to write mini-grants. Overall, 241 CWG members were trained. They have conducted 2800 cancer screening surveys. A total of 8 coalition members received mini-grants. Community capacity building can lead to a sense of ownership and empowerment.

Strategies for Managing the Lakes of the Rotorua District, New Zealand

The Rotorua district in New Zealand contains 12 nationally important lakes. Environment Bay of Plenty (EBOP), which has the responsibility of managing the quality of these lakes, set a routine monitoring program for these lakes and adopted the method of Burns et al. (1999, 2000) to analyse the data and calculate a numeric Trophic Level Index (TLI) value for each. In 1994, the district community indicated a goal to maintain the present condition for most of the lakes and to improve the remainder. As a result, numeric baseline TLI values were written into the Proposed Regional Water and Land Plan as the Rotorua District lake-water quality objectives. This plan also required formation of a community action plan for the remediation of any lake that exceeded its baseline TLI, a criterion that targeted five lakes. Deterioration in the water quality of these lakes is linked to urban expansion and gradual conversion of forested land to pasture over the past 100 years. Draft action plans identifying causes of lake deterioration, together with possible means of solving the problems, have been published for four lakes. Annual reports on the state of each lake have been published since 2000. This lake management system has resulted in valuable communication between EBOP, the Rotorua District Council and the communities living around the lakes, and has been instrumental in obtaining a cooperative approach to solving the identified problems. Methods to remediate these lakes include: converting pasture back to forest; alum dosing; creating riparian strips along streambanks; developing wetlands; installing reticulated sewage systems, and; diverting wastewater inputs from a lake into nearby forests.

Reducing disparities for African Americans with diabetes: progress made by the REACH 2010 Charleston and Georgetown Diabetes Coalition.

Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH 2010) is a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstration program that responds to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' goal to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health status by the year 2010. As part of REACH 2010, community projects were funded to develop, implement, and evaluate community action plans to improve health care and outcomes for racial and ethnic populations. This article describes the program and details the progress of the REACH 2010: Charleston and Georgetown Diabetes Coalition in reducing disparities in care. Approaches employed by the Coalition included community development, empowerment, and education related to diabetes; health systems change associated with access, care, and education; and coalition advocacy. Racial disparities were identified for 12,000 African Americans with diabetes in this urban/rural South Carolina community. After 24 months, significant differences that initially ranged from 11% to 28% in African Americans (when compared with whites/others) were not observed on 270 chart audits for A1C, lipid and kidney testing, eye examinations, and blood pressure control. Future efforts will focus on maintaining progress, eliminating other disparities, and identifying the contributions of each intervention in eliminating racial disparities.

Neighbourhood regeneration: facilitating community involvement

In this paper, the courses of action taken to facilitate residents' participation, in developing community action plans, in two Australian public housing estate regeneration projects are examined. The findings are placed within the context of changes, over the past 20 years, to the operation of housing authorities that were antecedents to the newly emerging partnership models of regeneration between the public and private sectors and communities. Three major findings are highlighted. First, the government role, in terms of providing support positions and allowing adequate time for residents to participate is critical to the success of community participation activities. The second finding is that the ever-increasing privatisation of public sector activities and pre-occupation with developing a more efficient, effective and lean public sector, essentially defined in economic terms, is in conflict with meeting government social goals of community participation. Third, much of the rhetoric used in neighbourhood regeneration projects of ‘rights and obligations’ and ‘sustainability’ is not well defined and is sometimes implemented in contradictory ways. In applying these terms, the housing authorities and their regeneration partners need to elucidate the principles they are promoting. In light of the findings overall, it is concluded that we should question the capacity of market oriented regeneration policy to lead to resident inclusion.

A strategy for Canada's urban forests

Urban forests are where 80% of Canadians live and work and, as such, represent their most intimate contact with their natural environment. The trees and woodlands in and around our cities and towns provide a broad range of environmental and socio-economic benefits to society. A recent survey in Ontario indicates that urbanites in that province not only consider their urban forests to be very important to them; they are also concerned about their conservation and management. A strategy for a collaborative, sustained, and nationally based effort to advance urban forestry in Canada is presented under the themes of community action, interdisciplinary relations, policy, professional development, research, and urban forests and planning. Key words: urban forest, strategy, community action, interdisciplinary relations, policy, professional development, research, planning.

A community approach to addressing excess breast and cervical cancer mortality among women of African descent in Boston.

In 2000, the REACH Boston 2010 Breast and Cervical Cancer Coalition conducted a community needs assessment and found several factors that may have contributed to disproportionately high breast and cervical cancer mortality among black women: (a) Focus group participants reported that many women in their communities had limited awareness about risk factors for cancer as well as about screening. (b) Black women experienced barriers to care related to the cultural competence of providers and of institutions. (c) Black women were not receiving adequate follow-up for abnormal mammograms and Pap smears. The Coalition's Community Action Plan to address disparities includes a model primary care service for black women; scholarships to increase the number of black mammogram technologists; primary care provider and radiology technologist training about disparities and cultural competence; and education to increase awareness among black women and to increase leadership and advocacy skills.

Erratum

Poster Session Abstracts. Am J Health Promot. 2002;16:360–372. The following Research Abstract was inadvertently omitted from the Poster Session Abstracts. RESEARCH ABSTRACT Collaboration to Address Cardiovascular Disease Disparity Joyce M. Woodson, Jamie Benedict, Michael Havercamp Statement of the Problem. Cardiovascular disease among Nevada's African Americans is a significant health issue. In 1998 the age-adjusted death rate for coronary heart disease among African Americans in Nevada was 149.60 per 100,000 deaths, compared to 89.90 per 100,000 deaths for Whites. The disparity between African Americans and Whites for stroke was even greater, 41.45 and 20.82, respectively. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE) developed a Community Action Plan to address this disparity. Methods. A coalition of faith community leaders and/or representatives and health-related agencies collaborated with UNCE to develop the Community Action Plan. Steps were: (1) development and administration of community health survey, (2) focus group discussions, and (3) prioritizing of topics and strategies identified by focus groups. Results. Incidence of hypertension was 40% (62% in a biological parent), 28% had high cholesterol, and 14% were diabetic. Top sources preferred for health information were health care providers, pamphlets, and the church. Educational workshops were preferred strategy. A Community Action Plan was developed using strategies preferred; topics of priority were food/nutrition and physical activity. Conclusions. Follow-up discussions reported that the plan was a feasible way to reach the target population, and that faith community support is important.

Health, biodiversity, and natural resource use on the Amazon frontier: an ecosystem approach.

This study aims to improve the health of rural Amazonian communities through the development and application of a participatory ecosystem approach to human health assessment. In the study area marked seasonal fluctuations dictate food availability, water quality and disease outbreak. Determining the causal linkages between ecosystem variables, resource use and health required a variety of forms of inquiry at multiple scales with local participation. Landscape spatial mapping of resource use demonstrated the diversity of the ecological resources upon which communities depend. Household surveys detailed family and individual consumption and production patterns. Anthropometric measurements, parasite loading, water quality and anemia levels were used as indicators of health status. This was complemented with an ethnographic and participatory health assessment that provided the foundation for developing community action plans addressing health issues. Discussion is focused on three attributes of an ecosystem approach; (a) methodological pluralism, (b) cross-scale interactions and (c) participatory action research.

Community Assessment and Planning for Maternal and Child Health Programs: A Participatory Approach in Ethiopia

This paper describes the use of a participatory approach to community assessment and planning in Ethiopia. The purpose of the assessment was for government health staff and community members to jointly identify and prioritize maternal and child health problems and develop a plan to solve them. Activities were conducted in five “woredas” (districts) in the Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s Region of Ethiopia. Some of the key features of the approach were: 1) use of a limited number of maternal and child health behaviors as a “menu” to guide planning; 2) use of an integrated household survey that measures indicators of caretaker behaviors which must be changed to reduce the most important causes of childhood morbidity and mortality; 3) implementation by a team of community volunteers and health staff; 4) collection of data that can be used at the community level for planning and at district zonal and regional levels for project monitoring and evaluation; and 5) an emphasis on immediate use of information by community members and health staff to produce joint action plans. The community planning process resulted in: 1) community action plans for the communities in five districts; 2) baseline data on key behaviors for monitoring and evaluation; and 3) trained staff at regional zonal and district levels. Community action plans included activities at both the facility and community levels such as training of health workers integration of health facility services health education and involvement of community organizations. The quantitative data were aggregated to provide baseline indicators for monitoring and evaluation. Follow-up data show changes in key child health behaviors. (authors)

Urban Community Action Planning Inspires Teenagers to Transform Their Community and Their Identity

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the way a participatory community development technique, Urban Community Action Planning (UCAP), transformed a group of city teenagers into community planners. This teen group, Teen Inspirators, On the Move, formed in response to a community need for more youth activities and programming. This need was identified during a Community Planning Initiative sponsored by the Oak Hill Community Development Corporation located in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Teen Inspirators committed themselves to revitalizing their community and changing their own image in the neighborhood. Participatory planning techniques gave youth the voice, power, and tools to accomplish these goals.