Towards more effective interventions to improve health: the importance of the community as an empowered partner

Abstract

How can we translate the findings from public health research into practice? We are not doing this job very well and we need to rethink our approach so that we can do a better job. The major problem is that we public health professionals have messages to give people, but people have lives to lead, and we have not done well in closing this gap. To deal with this problem, we will need to learn how to better involve the community as an empowered partner in our work. To do that, we will have to fundamentally change our public health model: We will have to change the way we classify disease; we will have to change the way we organize and finance public health education; and we will have to deal with our arrogance. This plenary talk at the Eighth Annual Midwest Rural Agricultural Safety and Health Forum (MRASH), November 2009, described the importance of looking at health promotion and disease prevention not only at the level of the individual but also at the community and environmental level.