ACTION: application and extension of the GENESIS community analysis model

GENESIS (General Ethnographic and Nursing Evaluation Studies In the State) is a tested and proven community analysis strategy that integrates ethnographic and epidemiologic data to arrive at a comprehensive, holistic description of the health of a community and its residents. Communities analyzed in most project GENESIS studies have been rural or semirural. ACTION (Assessing Communities Together in the Identification Of Needs) is an extension of the GENESIS community analysis model that was developed to meet the unique needs of community-level research and analysis in an urban, multicultural setting. Significant differences in the context in which the ACTION projects took place necessitated extensions in specific components of the GENESIS model. Application of the GENESIS model by the ACTION team is described. Based on the experiences with ACTION, recommendations are offered for future urban, multicultural community analysis projects.