To learn more about community health and community engagement and how to pursue them in your community, check out these resources.

Community Health

To improve community health, we must examine the drivers of health such as quality education, good jobs, safe housing and neighborhoods, and affordable and quality healthcare.

• American Hospital Association’s Social Determinants of Health Series: Provides resources, such as reports, webinars and case studies, to help hospitals address the social determinants of health.
• ChangeLab Solutions’ Uprooting Inequity Webinar Series: This series looks at the structural drivers of health inequity in six key areas: community health, employment, education, planning, food systems, or housing.
• Healthy People 2030: Sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade. Browse evidence-based practices to address health issues.
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Toolbox: : A free, searchable collection of public health tools. You can search and filter by keyword, toolkit name, state where the resource originated and date of upload.
• The Community Guide: A collection of evidence-based findings to improve community health from the Community Preventive Services Task Force.
• Unnatural Causes: A collection of resources about what is making us sick.
• What Works for Health: This tool from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows evidence-based policies and programs for a variety of health topics, such as diet and exercise, community safety, or access to health care. You can search by topic and evidence rating (Scientifically Supported, Some Evidence, Insufficient Evidence, Mixed Evidence, etc.). You can also look at the Disparity Rating to get a sense of how a strategy will likely impact disparities or gaps among socioeconomic groups, racial or ethnic groups, or geographic areas (i.e., urban vs. rural).

Community Engagement

• Community Tool Box: Provides resources and tools to improve community health through collaboration. Run by the University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development.
• Multi-Sectoral Alliance Resource Compendium Provides support to those looking to understand, form and efficiently use multi-sectoral alliances to address the conditions where we live, work and play.
• Principles of Community Engagement (Second Edition): “provides public health professionals, health care providers, researchers, and community-based leaders and organizations with both a science base and practical guidance for engaging partners in projects that may affect them.”
• UF Community Scientist Program: Help bridge the gap between researchers and community members by becoming a Citizen Scientist! Citizen Scientists may contribute to research by reviewing a research proposal, providing feedback on patient recruitment strategies, or sitting on a committee or workgroup. UF’s Citizen Community Scientist curriculum is available free to anyone.