title: Assessing the capacity of health departments to engage in community-based participatory public health.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We created indicators of local public health agency capacity to engage in community-based participatory public health.
  
  
  METHODS
  We sent a survey of 27 items reflecting aspects of community-based participatory public health to 429 employees in 4 local health departments. Two thirds (n = 282) responded. We performed a factor analysis to identify components of community-based participatory practice.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified 4 factors: (1) the agency's and (2) the individual employee's skills in working with community groups and minority populations, (3) the extent and frequency of agency networking, and (4) community participation in health department planning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that it is possible to measure the competencies needed by health department staff to engage in community-based participatory public health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, School of Public Health, Ann Arbor 48109-2029, USA. edithp@umich.edu
authors.forename: Edith
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.forename: Lewis H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Margolis
authors.forename: Eugenia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eng
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Henríquez-Roldán
mesh_terms: D003256:Community Participation; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008913:Minority Groups; D009657:North Carolina; D011361:Professional Competence; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000592:standards*; D015980:Public Health Practice / Q000592:standards; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires