Models of community empowerment help us understand the process of gaining influence over conditions that matter to people who share neighborhoods, workplaces, experiences, or concerns. Such frameworks can help improve collaborative partnerships for community health and development. First, we outline an interactive model of community empowerment that describes reciprocal influences between personal or group factors and environmental factors in an empowerment process. Second, we describe an iterative framework for the process of empowerment in community partnerships that includes collaborative planning, community action, community change, capacity building, and outcomes, and adaptation, renewal, and institutionalization. Third, we outline activities that are used by community leadership and support organizations to facilitate the process of community empowerment. Fourth, we present case stories of collaborative partnerships for prevention of substance abuse among adolescents to illustrate selected enabling activities. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of facilitating empowerment with collaborative partnerships for community health and development.

Evaluation plays a key role in developing and sustaining community partnerships and coalitions. We recommend focusing on three levels of coalition evaluation that measure (a) processes that sustain and renew coalition infrastructure and function; (b) programs intended to meet target activities, or those that work directly toward the partnership's goals; and (c) changes in health status or the community. A tendency to focus on quick wins and short-term effects of programs may explain why some coalitions are not able to achieve systems and/or health outcomes change. Although measuring community-level or system changes (e.g., improving environmental quality or changing insurance coverage policies) is much more difficult than evaluating program outcomes, it is essential. This article presents challenges that coalition practitioners and evaluators face and concludes with practical resources for evaluation.

Muslims in the United States experience many psychosocial issues and underutilize mental health services. This study sought to systematically identify the common issues and strengths of the Muslims affiliated with a college in the Southeast region of the United States and address them accordingly. A survey comprising 33 items and 2 open‐ended questions regarding common issues and strengths was constructed. A total of 116 participants completed the survey. The overall rating for items was quite high, whereas the satisfaction rating was very low. The most important item was, “You have prayer places/rugs, ablution stations, and water in restrooms,” with an importance rating of 94.52% and a satisfaction rating of 20.50%. Four items regarding mental health were rated as the least important, and participants reported lack of knowledge regarding mental health services. This is the first study that includes a list of common concerns and strengths of the Muslim communities affiliated with colleges in the United States.

Despite the considerable resources that have been dedicated to HIV prevention interventions and services over the past decade, HIV incidence among young people in the United States remains alarmingly high. One reason is that the majority of prevention efforts continue to focus solely on modifying individual behavior, even though public health research strongly suggests that changes to a community's structural elements, such as their programs, practices, and laws or policies, may result in more effective and sustainable outcomes. Connect to Protect is a multi-city community mobilization intervention that focuses on altering or creating community structural elements in ways that will ultimately reduce youth HIV incidence and prevalence. The project, which spans 6 years, is sponsored by the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions at multiple urban clinical research sites. This paper provides an overview of the study's three phases and describes key factors in setting a firm foundation for the initiation and execution of this type of undertaking. Connect to Protect's community mobilization approach to achieving structural change represents a relatively new and broad direction in HIV prevention research. To optimize opportunities for its success, time and resources must be initially placed into laying the groundwork. This includes activities such as building a strong overarching study infrastructure to ensure protocol tasks can be met across sites; tapping into local site and community expertise and knowledge; forming collaborative relationships between sites and community organizations and members; and fostering community input on and support for changes at a structural level. Failing to take steps such as these may lead to insurmountable implementation problems for an intervention of this kind.

Community coalitions are prominent mechanisms for building local capacities to address health and social concerns. Although there are case studies and descriptive reports on coalitions, there is little empirical information about coalition process and outcome. This paper describes a case study using a methodology for monitoring and evaluating community health coalitions. Data are fed back to coalition leaders and members, funding agents, and other relevant audiences as part of the development process. The monitoring system provides data on eight key measures of coalition process and outcome: the number of members, planning products, financial resources generated, dollars obtained, volunteers recruited, services provided, community actions and community changes. Illustrative data are presented for two different community health coalitions. Finally, challenges and opportunities in evaluating community coalitions are discussed.