American Journal of Health Promotion

Using select practice variables from Rothman's typology of models of community organization, this case study of the Massachusetts Community-Based Public Health Consortium analyses potential sources of conflict in collaborations between academic institutions and community coalitions. Based on different socialization experiences and organizational expectations, the goals, assumptions, basic change strategies, salient practitioner roles, conceptions of the client population, and client roles of the respective organizations were found to differ between these two partners and to be a source of chronic, unproductive tensions in consortium deliberations. The article concludes with recommendations for facilitating the development of more mutually trustworthy academic-community linkages to achieve public health promotion goals. These recommendations include (1) developing a greater awareness of the respective kinds of assumptions academic and community partners are likely to bring into new partnerships and (2) developing a more highly integrated model of community-based public health that capitalizes on the strengths of both the social planning and locality development approaches.

In this article, human ecology is defined; its historical and intellectual roots are traced through various disciplines to its applications in public health and health promotion today; its strengths and limitations are described; some potential contributions of systems theory are suggested; and some emerging ecological models of health promotion are anticipated.

Health promotion programs often lack a clearly specified theoretical foundation or are based on narrowly conceived conceptual models. For example, lifestyle modification programs typically emphasize individually focused behavior change strategies, while neglecting the environmental underpinnings of health and illness. This article compares three distinct, yet complementary, theoretical perspectives on health promotion: behavioral change, environmental enhancement, and social ecological models. Key strengths and limitations of each perspective are examined, and core principles of social ecological theory are used to derive practical guidelines for designing and evaluating community health promotion programs. Directions for future health promotion research are discussed, including studies examining the role of intermediaries (e.g., corporate decision-makers, legislators) in promoting the well-being of others, and those evaluating the duration and scope of intervention outcomes.

This article is guided by several premises. First, community coalitions fit with a social ecology perspective of health promotion because they work with multiple domains and promote community change. Second, the community context affects the functioning of coalitions. Third, key leaders are an important part of the social fabric of a community and influence the social ecology of a community; therefore a coalition should include key leaders and influence them and their organizations. The purpose of this article is to advance an understanding of the social ecology of coalitions by describing concepts, variables and results from two national studies and by providing anecdotal evidence and a measure of key leaders from our own work. After briefly defining and describing community coalitions, we: (1) review literature on contextual variables and community coalitions, (2) provide examples of contextual variables influencing community coalition development, and (3) discuss the relationship of key leaders in multiple domains and community coalitions. The article concludes with a discussion of the need for a framework of contextual variables and a promising next step.