Building Community Capacity

We know that taking steps now to prevent disease before it starts is crucial to keeping people healthier, living longer, and reducing health care costs. Yet, health systems around the globe continue to focus more attention and devote enormous resources on medical services to treat illnesses and injuries after the fact rather than taking steps to prevent them from occurring in the first place. Each of the articles presented in this book are examples of innovative community efforts that take a step back from the common practice of merely treating medical conditions, and instead implement effective prevention strategies that address the underlying conditions that lead to death, illness, injury, and health inequities. This book provides a glimpse into some public health prevention projects being carried out in diverse communities around the globe. Each chapter offers details about a unique problem faced within a community, the prevention strategies and partnerships that were developed, and the results that were achieved.