The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #67020

Karen J Williams, PhD, Jane Peranteau, PhD, Patricia Gail Bray, PhD, and Ilana Reisz, MA. Community Health Assessment, St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities, 6221 Main Street, Houston, TX 77030, 713-864.7990, kwilliams4@sleh.com

IMAP (Identifying social problem solvers, Mapping social problem solvers' claims, Analyzing professional orientations that arise from this mapping, and Predicting, diagnosing, and remediating conflicts) is a methodological tool for exploring tensions between technical experts and community voice in public health practice settings, including community coalition work, health planning, needs assessment, and evaluation. IMAP elicits underlying, unspoken and conflicting claims about types of knowledge useful for social problem solving, politics in social problem solving, and organizational style in social problem solving. IMAP is useful in examining individual health behaviors and social determinants of health as they occur in contexts of neighborhood health and in enhancing the recognition of community voice in public health practice. We illustrate IMAP in the case of the South Lake Health Collaborative, a five-year old community collaborative supported by a grant making foundation of an urban hospital. Formed to improve child health in a medically underserved community by increasing access to primary care, the collaborative has worked with an academic partner to research local health with community-based approaches. This paper uses IMAP to examine the work of the South Lake Health Collaborative by mapping the claims of foundation staff, university researchers, community residents, and local social service leadership and evaluating the effects of these claims. We make suggestions for using IMAP to predict, diagnose and remediate group conflict. We demonstrate IMAP’s ability to enhance the capacity of the South Lake Health Collaborative to improve neighborhood health.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, the participant learner will be able to:
• 1)Define the steps of the IMAP process.
• 2)Describe the three continua that delineate technical expertise and community voice claims about knowledge useful for social problem solving, politics in social problem solving, and organizational style.
• 3)Identify how IMAP could be applied in a public health practice setting familiar to the participant.

Keywords: Community Collaboration, Health Care Advocates

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.