Measuring community empowerment: a fresh look at organizational domains

Abstract

In 1986, the Ottawa Charter identified community empowerment as being a central theme of health promotion discourse. Community empowerment became a topical issue in the health promotion literature soon afterwards, though its roots also come from earlier literature in community psychology, community organizing and liberation education. Subsequent international conferences to address health promotion in Sundsvall, Adelaide and Jakarta have acted to reinforce this concept. It is as relevant today as it was more than a decade ago. The literature surrounding health promotion has since moved onto other overlapping theoretical perspectives, such as community capacity and social capital. And yet the critical issue of making community empowerment operational in a programme context remains thorny and elusive. Community empowerment is still difficult to measure and implement as a part of health promotion. This article offers a fresh look at key theoretical and practical questions in regard to the measurement of community empowerment. The theoretical questions help to unpack community empowerment in an attempt to clarify how the application of this concept can be best approached. The practical questions address the basic design characteristics for methodologies to measure community empowerment within the context of international health promotion programming. The purpose of this article is to allow researchers and practitioners to address again the important issue of making community empowerment operational.

A Case Study Considering Impacts of Active Membership in the Young Professionals Networking Group on Sense of Community and Social Capital

“…Respondents from this study indicate the YPNG allows for easier access and mobility of resources, members are more trusting and cohesive within the YPNG than the community as a whole, and feel a sense of community empowerment from being a member. These findings are consistent with major themes in social capital literature review and previous study results (Lin, 1999, Kawachi, Kennedy & Glass, 1999, Laverack & Wallerstein, 2001, Pretsby et al, 1990.…”

Social learning: A knowledge and capacity building approach for adaptive co-management of contested landscapes

“…Power differentials between participants and stakeholder groups were also evaluated for change based on assessment of sense of power to contribute to and influence decision making within the social learning exercise. There was the premise that community empowerment to influence and transform social and political issues come only through the ability to organise and mobilise individuals in groups (Laverack and Wallerstein, 2001). …”

Capital social e a agenda de pesquisa em epidemiologia

“…Tem sido argumentado, ainda, que a consolidada existência de conceitos relativamente similares na literatura internacional, tais como desenvolvimento comunitário 25 , "empoderamento" 26 , sociedade civil 27 , senso de comunidade 28,29 , capacidade e competência comunitária 25 , coesão comunitária 30 , entre outros, podem possuir um melhor desenvolvimento teó-rico do que o próprio termo capital social. Seria algo como reinventar a roda ou mesmo colocar vinho velho em garrafas novas 31 .…”