The making of an interdisciplinary partnership: the case of the Chicago Food System Collaborative.
Interdisciplinary partnerships foster innovation to address pressing social problems. This paper describes an interdisciplinary partnership called the Chicago Food System Collaborative (CFSC) composed of a team of partners from four academic institutions and three community-based organizations representing a total of eight disciplines that included: community development and community organizing, community psychology, geography, nursing, nutrition, public health, sociology, and urban planning and policy. Partners came together to address the issue of access to healthy foods and nutrition in a working class African American neighborhood. We analyze and discuss the core principles that guided the partnership and its impact across three dimensions: understanding through interdisciplinary action research, building capacity, and facilitating innovations in practices and policies. Despite the challenges of interdisciplinary partnerships, the potential benefits and impact of such efforts reflect their value as a comprehensive approach to addressing complex social problems.
Suarez-Balcazar
Yolanda
Y
College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1919 West Taylor, MC 811, 60612, USA.
Hellwig
Maureen
M
Kouba
Joanne
J
Redmond
Ladonna
L
Martinez
Louise
L
Block
Daniel
D
Kohrman
Claire
C
Peterman
William
W
D001741:Black or African American; D002641:Chicago; D018672:Community Health Planning; D003256:Community Participation; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005523:Food Supply; D006265:Health Care Coalitions; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D011204:Poverty Areas; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011593:Psychology, Social; D012961:Sociology