Community development model for public health applications: overview of a model to eliminate population disparities

For well over two decades, the public health community has undertaken a broad range of initiatives to identify and eliminate various health-related disparities among populations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Office on Smoking and Health (OSH), for example, has committed resources to help states eliminate population disparities related to tobacco use. These initiatives have enjoyed a degree of success and some measurable decreases in population disparities. However, traditional public health approaches that are overly influenced by reductionist paradigms more content with risk factor assessment of at-risk strata may not be sufficient to produce successful results when applied to more intractable disparities. The elimination of disparities will require a more encompassing and comprehensive approach that addresses both population strata at risk and the communities in which they reside. This article proposes a new, concentrated model to address the elimination of population disparities-a model that focuses on community as the critical unit of analysis and action to achieve success.