CHAPTER 4: BUILDING AND STRENGTHENING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Community engagement is an ongoing and evolving process of multidirectional collaboration. Such collaboration occurs with and for people to solve problems and mitigate concerns that matter to them through durable and equitable relationships. The ultimate goal is to create or enable services, policies, programs, and practices to improve health and increase empowerment in the community (Aguilar-Gaxiola et al., 2022).
Community engagement is critical for addressing health inequities and enhancing inclusiveness in health care and research (O’Mara-Eves et al., 2015). Building capabilities within organizations for meaningful community engagement is therefore an essential part of system-level strategies for building healthy communities and redressing historical social injustices. Such injustices include structural racism, and their resulting social, mental, and physiological effects. Advancing this goal requires commitment to improving health in communities by organizations across all relevant social determinants of health.