Community Change in Public Health

In bringing about behavior change in public health, we often focus on the individual mother, student, or farmer. We should not forget the community structure and norms constrain for encouraging individual health behaviors. This course examines the community context of the changes needed to promote the public’s health, as well as the various definitions of ‘community’ and the processes by which we ‘diagnose’ or seek to understand the structure and characteristics of different types of communities.

This course examines the concept of participation in an effort to see how different levels of involvement may affect the sustainability of community change efforts. Finally, a case study of a community participatory approach to onchocerciasis control in Africa is presented. Community Directed Intervention has subsequently been successfully applied to providing other essential primary health care services by and in the community, such as insecticide-treated bednets, malaria treatment, vitamin A distribution, deworming medicines, and pneumonia and diarrhea case management.

This training is part of a Foundations of Global Health specialization available through Johns Hopkins University. The individual course offers a no-cost or audit option. The training features five modules designed to be taken over a five-week period. 

This learning opportunity addresses training topics identified in PHWINS 2017.