Assessing the capacity of health departments to engage in community-based participatory public health.
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.
Parker
Edith
E
Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, School of Public Health, Ann Arbor 48109-2029, USA. edithp@umich.edu
Margolis
Lewis H
LH
Eng
Eugenia
E
Henríquez-Roldán
Carlos
C
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