Community Site Visits--An Innovative Conference Structure to Bring Research to Life

I Introduction

Partnerships are essential to health promotion practice. So too is the application of valid research findings. Thus the idea of partnering with our communities to do research appeals to most health promotion practitioners.

Two weeks ago, Toronto's Wellesley Institute co-hosted the 10th anniversary conference of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, "Mobilizing Partnerships for Social Change."  With more than 650 people attending from across the United States, Canada, and 12 other countries, the Toronto conference proved to be the largest CCPH conference ever.
 
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II Conference in the Community

Presentation methods were diverse and creative: story sessions, film screenings, challenge consultations sessions, and skill-building workshops. The most unusual method was site visits. Conference participants boarded buses and went to organizations and service providers all over the city to talk about their participatory research projects. The Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse participated in two of these visits described here.

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III Key to Women's Health Project

The Toronto Christian Resource Centre opened its doors to showcase a participatory research project called, "Key to Women's Health." This project was designed to create a new health promotion framework to improve stroke prevention among marginalized women, based on the Inclusion Research method.

Research Partners

Led by the Ontario Women's Health Network, this project brought together a diverse group: the Asset Mapping Research Project (AMRP) of the Toronto Christian Resource Centre (TCRC), Toronto Public Health, Region of Peel, Public Health, University of Toronto's Centre for Health Promotion, India Rainbow Community Services, Sudbury Women's Centre, and the Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse.

Research Tools

The visit opened with a presentation on "inclusion research." The project used the definition of inclusion developed by OPC's Count Me In! project that "an inclusive society creates both the feeling and the reality of belonging and helps each of us reach our full potential." (1)  As a participatory research project, it focused on breaking down the dichotomy between the researchers and the researched and used the methodology of inclusion research to involved marginalized women in all aspects of designing and implementing the research, including data collection. Women from Sudbury, Peel, and downtown Toronto participated.

A related concept used in this project is "asset mapping." (2)  Based on the community development theories of John McKnight and John Kretzmann, asset mapping looks at strengths rather than needs. Asset mapping works on "the premise is that all people, including those who are marginalized, homeless, with low or no income, or dealing with addictions, mental or physical health issues, have assets" (1)  such as skills, talents, gifts, abilities, interests, experiences, knowledge and dreams. Similarly, communities' resources are also assets, such as housing, community recreation centres, employment resource centres, and many others.

Research Findings

The "Key to Women's Health" project found that that stroke care programs do not accommodate women's geographic, cultural, socio-economic and linguistic differences. It also found that marginalized women prefer to receive information in plain language and in small peer-led groups. As a result, the health promotion framework based on this research includes an innovative outreach campaign that uses marginalized women as educators to lead discussions about health and stroke in circles of learning and action .

Asset Mapping

Following a welcome and introduction to the range of work that the TCRC does in the community by the Executive Director, Michael Blair, members of the AMRP, one of the project partners, led site visitors through the mapping process by visiting the communities of Regent Park and St. Jamestown. These were the communities where many "Key to Women's Health" focus group participants live and where the focus groups were conducted.

At each "asset," local staff explained what their services were and how they were geared to the community. Guests saw groups of school children congregating for after-school activities, met a community liaison worker helping residents of an apartment block connect with community resources, and heard about services for women who have recently immigrated. Visitors were impressed with the diversity of these community assets and dedication of those involved.

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IV Other community-academic partnerships highlighted

At its offices, OPC hosted a very different site visit. Whereas the "The Key to Women's Health Project" visit focused on a specific initiative, the visit to OPC showed the range of academic-community partnerships that can be undertaken. Connie Clement, OPC's Executive Director, welcomed guests and described how OPC participates in academic-community partnerships in nearly every aspect of its work.

Visitors toured the program areas of OPC, such as the Ontario Health Promotion Resource System (http://www.ohprs.ca/) secretariat and two health promotion resource centres. All of the projects highlighted here have elements of academic-community partnerships:
    * The Health Promotion Resource Centre highlighted the "Count me In" inclusion project.
    * Best Start Resource Centre displayed multiple bilingual resources on maternal, newborn, and child health promotion initiatives.
    * The Prevent Stroke program presented work on "Connecting the Dots", a dynamic community process, which sets the stage for collaborative work on chronic disease.
    * Two University of Toronto students from the Information Management program presented their work on digital libraries/knowledge management.

To illustrate the outcome of a specific community-campus initiative, guests participated in ‘hands-on' presentation on the Health Promotion Assessment Tool (http://www.opc.on.ca/draft/HPChecklist.htm). This tool/checklist for assessing health promotion content was developed to promote consistency and high standards in health promotion information across the range of affiliates in the Canadian Health Network. The Ontario Prevention Clearing House is the community partner and the University of Toronto's Centre for Health Promotion is the academic partner. The Canadian Health Network is a collaborative, bilingual, non-commercial, and authoritative consumer health website (http://www.canadian-health-network.ca).

The final part of the site visit was dedicated to highlighting the relationship between the Master's of Health Promotion program at University of Toronto (http://www.phs.utoronto.ca/mhsc_health_promotion.asp) and OPC. Paola Ardiles, a former MHSc student and now staff member of OPC, talked about her experience in working with her practicum supervisor, Hiltrud Dawson, staff at Best Start Resource Centre (http://beststart.org/) on a social marketing project on Postpartum Mood Disorders (http://www.lifewithnewbaby.ca/). Hiltrud and Paola closed the visit by presenting the 17-minute video developed for this campaign.

Participatory Research: More than a Nice Idea

Both CCPH and the Wellesley Institute promote and conduct CBPR. CCPH's mission is "to foster partnerships between communities and educational institutions ... for improving health professions education, civic responsibility, and the overall health of communities." The Wellesley Institute "advances the social determinants of health through rigorous community-based research, reciprocal capacity building, and the informing of public policy." With such affinity, it is little wonder that these two organizations have partnered so effectively.

In a context of increasing demands for evidence-based practice in all health endeavours, however, CBPR is more than just a nice idea. It may be one of the best ways to create evidence in a field that tackles multiple determinants of health.

Watch for a more in-depth look the importance of participatory research to health promotion in the coming weeks at OHPE.

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V References

1. Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse. Count Me In! http://www.count-me-in.ca/.
Accessed May 4, 2007.

2. Toronto Christian Resource Centre. Asset Mapping: Working with homeless and marginalized house individuals. Open Door Centre, Building Community Assets Toronto. http://www.sharedlearnings.org/resources/opendoor/en/Asset_Mapping_Research_Project-SL_site.pdf. Accessed May 4, 2007.