title: Coalicion de Salud Comunitaria (COSACO): using a Healthy Community Partnership framework to integrate short-term global health experiences into broader community development.
abstract: There is growing concern that short-term experiences in global health experiences (STEGH), undertaken by healthcare providers, trainees, and volunteers from high income countries in lower and middle income countries, risk harming the community by creating a parallel system of care separate from established community development efforts. At the same time, the inclusion of non-traditional actors in health planning has been the basis of the development of many Healthy Community Partnerships (HCP) being rolled out in Canada and the United States. These partnerships aim to bring all stakeholders with a role to play in health to the table to align efforts, goals and programs towards broad community health goals.
  
  
  
  This methodology paper reports on the process used in La Romana, Dominican Republic, in applying a modified HCP framework. This project succeeded at bringing visiting STEGH organizations into a coalition with key community partners and supported attempts to embed the work of STEGH within longer-term, established development plans.
  
  
  
  In presenting the work and process and lessons learned, the hope is that other communities that encounter significant investment from STEGH groups, and will gain the same benefits that were seen in La Romana with regards to improved information exchange, increased cross-communication between silos, and the integration of STEGH into the work of community partners.
authors.affiliation: Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Sixth Floor, Toronto, ON, M5T 3 M7, Canada. lloh@jhsph.edu.|, The 53rd Week, 151 Kent Avenue, Unit 116, Brooklyn, NY, 11249, USA. lloh@jhsph.edu.
authors.forename: Lawrence C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Loh
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health Education, University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, 301 University Blvd, Galveston, TX, 77555, USA.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Valdman
authors.affiliation: University of Massachusetts Medical School, 373 Plantation Street #318, Worcester, MA, 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Dacso
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks / Q000592:standards*; D004293:Dominican Republic; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods*; D012939:Social Planning
keywords: Collaboration; Community engagement in health; Community health partnership; Community health services; Development; Global health education; Partnership