Using community engagement through community-based assessment methods to achieve health equity

There is a growing movement for building neighborhoods that promote healthy lifestyles.  Based on historical and social inequities, neighborhood improvements may not be distributed equally, which differentially impacts community health.  United for Health, is a partnership between fourteen community based organizations was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Community Transformation grant-Small Communities to build neighborhood capacity.  Each partner represents racially and socio-economically diverse neighborhoods, each with glaring health disparities.  Collaboration and ongoing engagement with community residents were key components for implementing the wide range of the interventions throughout Los Angeles. This presentation will describe the process and results of two community-led assessment activities.  Over two years, the 14 United for Health partners were involved with recruiting, training and supervising community members for local data collection including built environment assessment which measured neighborhood level conditions and a Neighborhood Opinion Survey that provided evidence to inform local advocacy efforts. During the first year, 200 community members conducted the built environment assessment for 105 routes within five distinct neighborhoods in Los Angeles.  65% of the trained community members 200 were brought together five months later to discuss the findings and differences between neighborhoods and to provide input on additional data collection efforts. During year two, 2934 community surveys were collected by 130 trained community members. Findings were used to target neighborhood improvements and inform local advocacy. Engaging community members in local level assessments is one way to ensure policy, system and environmental changes are influenced by community-driven findings.