Clinic-Based Community Organizing to Improve Health Equity

This episode features a conversation between two health center-based community organizers: Hilary Mar Lopez Nichols, from Oregon Health Sciences University Family Medicine Clinic at Richmond, and Toffer Lehnherr, from Partnership Health Center in Missoula, Montana. This is the first in a series of six Coffee & Science events on topics related to Alignment and Advocacy, which are the last two “A”s of the National Academy of Medicine’s framework that SIREN’s used to organize Coffee & Science. Alignment and Advocacy are both about what health care can do at the community level to address social needs.  In this conversation, Hilary and Toffer share their experiences with using community organizing in clinical settings to help advance health equity.

Recommended references:

• Morris JE. When “Patient-Centered” is Not Enough: A Call for Community-Centered Medicine. Ann Fam Med. 2019.
• Christens BD, Peterson NA, Speer PW. Community participation and psychological empowerment: Testing reciprocal causality using a cross-lagged panel design and latent constructs. Health Educ Behav. 2011.
• Wolf L, Vigna AJ, Inzeo PT et al.  From Roots to Results: A Qualitative Case Study of the Evolution of a Public Health Leadership Institute Building Capacity in Collaborating for Equity and Justice. Health Educ Behav. 2019.
• Speer PW, Tesdahl EA, Ayers JF : Community organizing practices in a globalizing era: Building power for health equity at the community level. J Health Psychol. 2013.
• Speer PW, Christens BD. A Kansas City case study: Local community organizing and change: Altering policy in the housing and community development system in Kansas City. J Community Applied Soc Psychol. 2011.
• Collins CR, Nealth JW, Neal ZO. An article that links (theoretically) community organizing with efficacy and empowerment: Transforming individual civic engagement into community collective efficacy: The role of bonding social capital. Am J Community Psychol. 2014.