New Connections: Publication GrantCommunity health research for minority communities has identified (1) access to health care, (2) lack of insurance, (3) poverty, (4) education, and (5) lifestyle factors as key to well being. All five of these areas contain both individual-level and community-level elements. These drivers are all embodied effects of systemic factors that pertain to the differential access to resources for certain communities. Rather than take an approach that evaluates only proximal causes of disease (e.g. individual life-style factors), community based research that examines the social foundations of health best capture the complex ecologies for active living. The purpose of this project is to produce two original manuscripts for publication. Both manuscripts rely upon the Principal Investigator's collaboration with a low income, Latino community in Fullerton, CA wherein community actors drive the health assessment, in the form of community-based collaborative research (CBCR). Manuscript one will detail the development of a youth soccer league, based on data from 110 subjects from a 300 member youth soccer league. Data will consist of measurement of body mass index, waist circumference, and a fitness test performance. Manuscript two will spotlight the role of civic engagement in community well being. The case study consists of conducting a collaborative qualitative health needs assessment with a low income, urban, Latino neighborhood to determine the impact of civic engagement on community well being. The data includes biometric measurements and interviews, oral histories and participant observation and dialogical focus groups.
