Introduction
What is community engagement?
Community engagement — 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 — is an essential element of public health practice. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1997).
The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) adapted the International Association of Public Participation IAP2 Spectrum to create the spectrum below, which provides supportive guidance to public health professionals involved in community engagement. BPHC’s spectrum illustrates that community engagement is not a linear process, but rather it requires consistent and continuous involvement of communities in an organization’s planning and decision-making process, making use of all levels of the spectrum depending on the situation.
Public health practitioners who commit to authentic forms of community engagement must recognize the importance of iterative, reflective, and adaptable approaches.
BPHC developed a two-part comprehensive equitable community engagement toolkit that public health professionals can use as a framework in decision-making processes (Section 1 and Section 2). This toolkit and others like it provide tactical strategies and tools to implement community engagement activities for public health professionals.
FIGURE 1: BPHC Community Engagement Spectrum
Source: Boston Public Health Commission, 2022
What makes this toolkit different?
Evidence-based approaches and quantitative analyses are critical tools in our public health tookbox. But how can we broaden our mental models to integrate approaches that more intentionally include a greater number of community voices, while building community power?
Community Engagement
The saying “Nothing about us without us” has fueled the disability rights movement for decades and applies to our public health work in community. Yet, authentic community engagement can go against some of our typical approaches — for example, prioritizing evidence-based approaches over community-generated solutions or identifying problems through quantitative data analyses, interpreted through the mental models of trained data analysts instead of those most deeply impacted by the inequities we are trying to resolve.
HEALTH EQUITY CORE CONCEPTS
This toolkit defines core concepts related to health equity, mental models, and power mapping, and applies those learnings both through individual reflection and to community engagement activities. Authentic community engagement — a process that includes examining and broadening our mental models and understanding of community power — increases the likelihood that our public health efforts will be supported and sustained. To advance health equity and ensure solutions are appropriate and collectively owned, we consider ways to create and sustain authentic engagement of diverse stakeholders, including communities, sectors, leaders, and other individuals; furthermore, as public health professionals, we should continuously consider which voices are not included at the table and modify approaches wherever possible.
4 FOUNDATIONAL MODULES
As public health practitioners, we all have a role to play in removing obstacles and barriers to health and reducing health disparities and inequities through community engagement. This toolkit includes four modules designed to inspire and support reflection, improve public health practice, and provide practical tools related to the following topics in pursuit of authentic community engagement:
- Health Equity Core Concepts
- Examining our Mental Models
- Building Community Power
- Applications for Community Engagement
“Real and equitable progress requires exceptional attention to the detailed and often mundane work of noticing what is invisible to many.”— FSG’s “The Waters of Systems Change”
