Valuing People & Communities in Public Health with Asset-Based Development, Slides of Human Development

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Articulating humanisation for

public health research and

practice

Why are humanising

principles valuable for public health?

Valuing the individual

Valuing the community

This paper will focus on community development to reduce inequities in health as a key public health research and policy focus and will critique it in relation to the humanising value framework for research proposed by Todres, Galvin & Holloway (2009).

There is a tendency in public health research and practice to drift to a medical model for answers and think of interventions and measuring effects with little thought given to studying action (Hunter 2005) with its roots in local communities. Indeed by its very nature it is hard to measure an intervention accurately in several communities and compare them because they are unique with unique assets and contexts within which people live.

This tension has resulted in the

valuing of qualitative research within

public health policy and practice to a

degree although overall guidance

for practice in the UK has its roots in

the National Institute for Health and

Clinical Excellence which is

dominated by evidence derived from

Randomised Controlled Trials.

An Overview of Asset Based Community Development

Based on extensive enquiry into successful community initiatives in the U.S. ABCD is articulated as a way of counteracting the predominant needs based approach to development (Kretzmann & McKnight 1999). In the needs based approach the well intentioned efforts of organisations have generated needs surveys, analysed problems and identified solutions to meet needs. In the process however they have presented a one sided negative view of communities rather than contributed to capacity building.

This paper will consider how this cup always half empty process mirrors the way that individual patients in health care are labelled as a disorder or list of needs and their individual humanity and strengths are lost in the process.

Consider the dimensions of humanisation (Todres Galvin & Holloway 2009) in relation to public health research and ABCD

• Insiderness/objectification
• Agency/passivity
• Uniqueness/homogenization
• Togetherness/isolation
• Sense making/loss of meaning
• Personal journey/loss of personal journey
• Sense of place/dislocation
• Embodiment/reductionist view of the body

However, the consideration of these elements will be undertaken in this presentation with a focus on action, actions that we can research and take in practice in order to have a positive impact on inequalities in health.

Uniqueness/homogenisation

How can we promote wellbeing for unique people in the context of their local community?

Togetherness/Isolation

Does that person have any support, how can we maximise it? How does the local community provide support for those living there how can we maximise it?

Arguably by treating relationships as assets, ABCD is a practical application of the concept of social capital (Puttnam)

Personal journey/loss of personal journey This manifests itself in an excessive emphasis on how the community is (poor, jobless, beset with needs and problems) rather than who they are, what are their individual and group assets? How can we help grow these?

Sense of place/dislocation

This is relevant for displaced groups or individuals for instance refugees or the homeless but also resonates in relation to

how wellbeing cannot be separated from the atmosphere created by the built environment

Insiderness/objectification

How can we build self and community esteem and not destroy it with labels and judgements

Do Methods which focus on

humanisation and community assets

give us a possible way forward to guide

public health research and practice?