CHER at APHA 2014

Staff members from the Center for Health Equity Research (CHER) participated in the American Public Health Association’s 142nd Annual Meeting - “Healthography, How Where You Live Affects Your Health and Well-Being,” November 15-19 in New Orleans

Our staff had the opportunity to present our community-based work through posters and presentations:

Evaluating Resident Power as a Driver of Place-Based Social and Policy Change in California
Was a roundtable presentation with Dr. Laura D’Anna highlighting CHER’s process and results from an in-person survey conducted with selected Long Beach residents to measure residents’ assessment of their own level of engagement, leadership and influence in the Building Healthy Communities Long Beach (BHCLB) policy and systems change initiative. The survey will be re-administered periodically in the coming years. Strategies for enhancements to the survey and resident participation in the survey process were discussed. Dr. D’Anna also presented a research poster related to the BHCLB evaluation titled Engaging the Community in a Learning Framework:  Highlights from a Place-Based Building Healthy Communities Initiative.

Evaluation Manager, Dr. Parichart Sabado, presented findings from a workgroup assessment survey at a session entitled Environmental Health Practices at the Local Level.  The session was designed to provide audience members with examples of locally-developed strategies and data collection tools that have been successfully used in environmental health-related projects.   The Building Health Communities (BHC) Collaboration Assessment Tool was developed with input from organizational partners across 14 BHC sites and is used to assess collaborative efficacy among workgroups.   The Environmental Health Workgroup was one of three workgroups that completed the survey in November 2013.  Major findings from this workgroup assessment include the identification of having common goals, a membership of diverse stakeholders, and shared decision-making power as key components of effective collaboration, and the need for regular assessments to enhance collaborative efficacy.  

Carol Canjura, CHER program manager, and Vattana Peong, program manager at The Cambodian Family Community Center (TCFCC) co-presented a scientific poster, Involving Community Stakeholders in Reducing Health Disparities among Refugee and Immigrant Communities The poster focused on the findings from interviews with community stakeholders conducted as part of a community needs assessment designed to inform the efforts of TCFCC to address the health disparities experienced by the Cambodian and Latino populations they serve.

CHER staff is currently working on abstracts for the 143rd annual APHA meeting in Washington D.C.