pubhlth 253 - week 3: community assessment, gender, & intersectionality

information for change

• measure, describe, & understand community lifestyles

• return needs assessment data to facilitate residents’ decision making

• assess community resources to lessen external dependency

information for empowerment

• provide skill, training, leadership, & organizational skills

• facilitate collective activities & group mobilization

• enable conscious raising

how to assess: questions to ask

• what type of info is useful to the community?

• what community perspective has not been previously shown?

• how will the process of assessment empower community?

assessment methods: “no contract”

• environmental quality index

  • air

  • water

  • land

  • built environment

  • sociodemographic

  • county-level

• social vulnerability index (SVI)

  • socioeconomic status

  • household characteristics

  • race & ethnicity

  • housing type

• U.S. census tracts

• healthy places index

  • economics

  • education

  • healthcare access

  • housing

  • neighborhood conditions

  • clean environment

  • social environment

  • transportation

• california census tracts

assessment methods: minimal contact

• neighborhood asset mapping

• community walk throughs

• neighborhood walk audit

assessment methods: “interactive contract”

• mixture of quantitative & qualitative methods

• community-driven surveys

• key informant interviews

• focus groups

• “talking story”

community capcity

interaction of human, organizational, and social capital existing within a given community that can be leveraged to
solve collective problems and improve or maintain the well-being of a given community

capacity building

the process of identifying individual, organization, and community capabilities that serve as the first step on the path toward community regeneration

ethnic enclaves

area with high ethnic concentration with characteristic cultural identity and economic activity

measuring sociocultural institutions

businesses or organizations that have cultural meaning to specific
communities, particularly those that provide opportunities for community members to interact in positive ways around social, recreational, religious, civic, or other common interests

gender identity

• cisgender

• gender queer

• gender fluid

• gender variant

• transgender

• agender

sexual orientation

• asexual

• bisexual

• gay

• lesbian

• pansexual

• straight 

• queer

stigma

power differentials are prominent

theoretical concepts: life course

• age-patterned exposure (social pathways)

• sensitive periods

• linked lives

• latency period

• stress proliferation

• period effects

• cohort effects

theoretical concepets: minority stress theory

• groups are marginalized in society b/c of their minority status

• experience marginalization, stress, discrimination, mistreatment

• mistreatment can be overt or covert (microaggression)

• minority status can be internalized

• exposures to every day & lifetime stress can cause health inequities

intersectionality

framework for understanding how people’s identitites & experiences are shaped by the intersections of mulitple “-isms”