Lasting solutions: How public health leaders can foster resident and youth-led community health change

Building Healthy Communities (BHC) is a 10-year resident-led community health improvement initiative that seeks to foster thriving communities where California children and their families can live healthy, safe, and productive lives. Using a health equity framework that acknowledges social inequities lead to health inequities, 14 California communities seek to change the conditions in which people live that lead to cumulative health disadvantage. This is done by building resident power and youth leadership, and by promoting last policy changes that address health and social inequities as well as how systems respond to individuals. In this session, participants will have the opportunity to hear from leaders of four different BHC communities in California, both urban and rural, about the tangible community benefits that have been derived from collaborative advocacy and policy work that attracts likely and unlikely allies in promoting health and resident leadership. Examples of significant wins and strategies related to environmental justice, transportation, housing, community benefit agreements, tenant organizing, local ordinances, and power shifts that promote resident leadership and advocacy will be presented. Essential to these achievements have been strong partnerships with institutional and system leaders in public health and other arenas. Public health practitioners will learn about the approaches that create effective community partnerships from the perspective of coalition leaders making progress on persistent and complex community health issues, opening up the possibility of new ideas and strategies for their own communities.