TY - JOUR
T1 - Social change or business as usual at city hall? Examining an urban municipal government's response to neighbourhood-level health inequities
AU - Cahuas, Madelaine C.
AU - Wakefield, Sarah
AU - Peng, Yun
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - There is a renewed interest in the potential of municipal governments working collaboratively with local communities to address health inequities. A growing body of literature has also highlighted the benefits and limitations of participatory approaches in neighbourhood interventions initiated by municipal governments. However, few studies have investigated how neighbourhood interventions tackling health inequities work in real-time and in context, from the perspectives of Community Developers (CDs) who promote community participation. This study uses a process evaluation approach and semi-structured interviews with CDs to explore the challenges they face in implementing a community development, participatory process in the City of Hamilton's strategy to reduce health inequities - Neighbourhood Action. Findings demonstrate that municipal government can facilitate and suppress community participation in complex ways. CDs serve as significant but conflicted intermediaries as they negotiate and navigate power differentials between city and community actors, while also facing structural challenges. We conclude that community participation is important to bottom-up, resident-led social change, and that CDs are central to this work.
AB - There is a renewed interest in the potential of municipal governments working collaboratively with local communities to address health inequities. A growing body of literature has also highlighted the benefits and limitations of participatory approaches in neighbourhood interventions initiated by municipal governments. However, few studies have investigated how neighbourhood interventions tackling health inequities work in real-time and in context, from the perspectives of Community Developers (CDs) who promote community participation. This study uses a process evaluation approach and semi-structured interviews with CDs to explore the challenges they face in implementing a community development, participatory process in the City of Hamilton's strategy to reduce health inequities - Neighbourhood Action. Findings demonstrate that municipal government can facilitate and suppress community participation in complex ways. CDs serve as significant but conflicted intermediaries as they negotiate and navigate power differentials between city and community actors, while also facing structural challenges. We conclude that community participation is important to bottom-up, resident-led social change, and that CDs are central to this work.
KW - Canada
KW - Community participation
KW - Development
KW - Health inequities
KW - Neighbourhood interventions
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84928136095&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84928136095&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.09.022
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.09.022
M3 - Article
C2 - 25245453
AN - SCOPUS:84928136095
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 133
SP - 366
EP - 373
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
ER -