New journal article centers community power in policy

We are pleased to announce the publication of Prevention Institute’s research, Cultivating a Healthier Policy Landscape: The Building Healthy Communities Initiative, in Health Promotion Practice. The journal article highlights policy achievements and advocacy strategies of the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Initiative, a 10-year, $1 billion effort launched in 2010 by The California Endowment, California’s largest private health foundation.

The BHC Initiative advanced local and state policy to promote health equity and empowerment for communities affected by long-standing health inequities. The article explores how the initiative—by centering movement- and power-building—helped transform local conditions. This resulted in more than 1,500 distinct changes in policy, systems, and the physical environment, including:

• Expanded buffer zones to protect people from pesticides and oil/gas extraction
• Implemented restorative justice diversion programs
• Strengthened rental housing inspections and code enforcement capacity
• Expanded school-based mental health staffing

PI reviewed more than 200 reports and research articles and drew heavily on our organization’s ongoing learning about the relationship between community power, movement-building, and policy to address the determinants of health.

“The result is a valuable contribution to the peer-reviewed literature, adding to the scholarship linking community organizing, and movement- and power-building to health equity practice . . . ” 
—Juliet Sims, Associate Program Director, Prevention Institute

Learn more:

• Juliet Sims wrote about the importance of this research article in a blog on LinkedIn.
• Cultivating a Healthier Policy Landscape: The Building Healthy Communities Initiative