Message-ID: <01I6STN74MKQ8WXAWA@SOPHIA.SPH.UNC.EDU> Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:19:42 -0400 From: Rick Neal <mailto:40RNEAL@SOPHIA.SPH.UNC.EDU> Subject: Microenterprise for health - meeting highlights To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Thanks, Mr. Macinko, for posting the results of the meeting about the connections between microenterprise and health. I work with the North Carolina Community-Based Public Health Initiative, one of seven projects around the U.S. trying to figure out how to get academic institutions, health agencies, and community-based organizations to work with communities to identify and address community priorities. While our efforts have been based at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, and local health departments have provided some leadership for the project, we really try to take a very broad view of health - to the extent that we view pretty much everything as health related. We're not really focused on reducing infant mortality or getting immunization rates up or increasing economic opportunities or addressing issues of violence - we look at all of these issues as they come up in the communities we work with, with the overall goal of creating and sustaining healthy communities. I was struck in your message by the split between economic development and health - I can see why maintaining such a split makes sense for programmatic reasons but does it make much sense from a community's point of view? I guess I also felt that communities and their residents were seen as clients of health or microenterprise programs or recipients of the benefits of those programs, instead of full participants and partners in the process. The description of the meeting gave me a sense of how people were trying to figure out how to mesh project goals and methods, but left me wondering where the community people fit into the picture.Rick Neal mailto:40RNeal@sophia.sph.unc.edu