Course 9 Preview

Building Community Power

Public health will be able to make greater gains in achieving health equity through shifting and sharing power with communities that experience marginalization. Looking for the full Course 9? Access Course 9 here.

Illustration of a person talking through a megaphone, another holding a sign with others in the background

Purpose and Overview

To make material progress towards health equity, public health needs to support community-led efforts to shift and reclaim power. To do this, public health must shift away from traditional community engagement practices and towards deeper community relationships, power sharing, and organizing. This course will: 1) examine public health’s traditional relationship with communities, and its limitations; 2) discuss types of community engagement, and ways to move towards more community-led approaches; and 3) share community power building and community organizing strategies and practices, and define ways public health practitioners and institutions can support these approaches in their work.


Course 9 Highlights

Screenshot of the Reveal Exercise - How does greater community control and power advance health equity?
Screenshot of the Choose your path: practical applications of the spectrum interactive
Interactive
:
10min
Considering your community engagement practice along the spectrum.
screenshot of gare
Screenshot of the Mechanisms of Change Worksheet
Interactive
:
9min
Centering community organizing in our work, and in relationship to other mechanisms for change.

Next Steps

Illustration of a group of people of various genders and races stand and sit around a table conversing
Start a group

Learn together about the roots of health inequity by starting a group for your organization. Our course provides step-by-step guidance on how to facilitate healthy dialogue and exploration.

Illustration of a black man sitting on the ground with a laptop open in his lap
Learn independently

Enroll in the Independent Learners group and complete the course with a community of learners interested in health equity.