Prevention is Primary: Strategies for Community Well Being » (1st Edition)

Larry Cohen, M.S.W., is the founder and executive director of Prevention Institute, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing community well-being through primary prevention.

Vivian Chávez, M.P.H., Dr.P.H., is associate professor in the department of health education at San Francisco State University.

Sana Chehimi, M.P.H., is program manager at Prevention Institute.

At a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities for public health, Prevention is Primary provides models, methods, and approaches for building health and equity in communities. Written in accessible and understandable language, this comprehensive book includes the theory, concepts, and models needed to harness social justice and practice primary prevention of unnecessary illness and injury in the first place.

Prevention is Primary, written by associates of the nationally renowned Prevention Institute, is a theory-to-practice book for students, faculty practitioners, and community leaders who want to take a proactive stance against the most pressing health problems in the community including asthma, tobacco, violence, HIV, poor nutrition and physical inactivity, health disparities, and environmental injustice. The volume provides a comprehensive and practical understanding of prevention on a community level. The authors define the elements of comprehensive, quality prevention efforts—from the necessary partnerships that need to be developed to the training, vision, and policies that go into successful efforts.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Michele A Kelley, ScD, MSW, MA(University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health)
Description:This book defines the meaning and significance of community level approaches to population health improvement. Furthermore, it offers specific strategies and frameworks for understanding and evaluating these strategies, with examples across a variety of important public health issues and priorities.
Purpose:The purpose is to present evidence-supported and culturally relevant strategies for community health improvement. The authors make the case that access to clinical care is necessary but not sufficient, and that to attain sustainable gains in health, strategies at multiples levels are needed. This book is focused on prevention at the community level. It is valuable as a single source of well documented information and strategies that address some of the most pressing issues that manifest as health inequities. In this regard, the book is successful as a basic first reference for pubic health practitioners, faculty, and students.
Audience:Intended to provide an overview of concepts and strategies for community prevention, it is written at a basic level to be useful for students, novice or advanced practitioners, scientists and policy analysts. This is one of the best single source documents on the state of community prevention in public health. The editors and authors are well known in their fields, and the organization of the book and index make the information easy to access and use, whether in the classroom or in the field.
Features:Covering the meaning and significance of community prevention, the book provides rich examples of critical aspects of prevention strategies and frameworks and illustrations of state-of-the-art initiatives and action at the local level. One of the most helpful tools is the use of diagrams and figures to illustrate prevention concepts and strategies. For example, the Cultural Proficiency Continuum and the Wheel of Community Organizing summarize the text and make the concepts easy to understand and apply. A limitation is that the concept of community well-being could be better supported in the definition of terms. The field of community psychology, closely related to public health, has a rich literature on this topic and the book could have benefited by incorporating some more of the ideas and references from that field.
Assessment:This book successfully makes the case that prevention is primary, while providing readers with definitions, concepts, and real world applications. It fills a gap in public health texts by focusing on the community level and emphasizing applications to public health practice. It has great value for practitioners and those who teach practice. However, it is not a comprehensive review of emerging paradigms for intervention science, although that is not the goal of the book. [See, for example, Handbook of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Raczynski and DiClemente (Springer, 1999).] In terms of augmenting the meaning of community well-being, the book by community psychologist Isaac Prilleltensky has more conceptual clarity and offers more on organizational strategies within communities. [Promoting Well-Being: Linking Personal, Organizational, and Community Change (John Wiley & Sons, 2006).] The well known work of this author and scholar was not cited.

List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits     vii
Acknowledgments     ix
Foreword   Georges C. Benjamin     xi
The Contributors     xv
Introduction   Larry Cohen   Vivian Chavez   Sana Chehimi     xxix
Defining the Issues     1
Beyond Brochures: The Imperative for Primary Prevention   Larry Cohen   Sana Chehimi     3
Achieving Health Equity and Social Justice   Wayne H. Giles   Leandris C. Liburd     25
Gender, Health, and Prevention   Michelle Ramirez   Siobhan Maty   Leslie McBride     41
The Hope of Prevention: Individual, Family, and Community Resilience   Bonnie Benard     63
Key Elements of Effective Prevention Efforts     91
Community Organizing for Health and Social Justice   Vivian Chavez   Meredith Minkler   Nina Wallerstein   Michael S. Spencer     95
More Than a Message: Framing Public Health Advocacy to Change Corporate Practices   Lori Dorfman   Lawrence Wallack   Katie Woodruff     121
Working Collaboratively to Advance Prevention   Larry Cohen   Ashby Wolfe     141
Making Change:The Power of Local Communities to Foster Policy   Makani Themba-Nixon     161
Using Media Advocacy to Influence Policy   Lori Dorfman     181
Primary Prevention and Program Evaluation   Daniel Perales     205
Prevention in Context     231
Preventing Injustices in Environmental Health and Exposures   Stephanie Ann Farquhar   Neha Patel   Molly Chidsey     235
Health and the Built Environment: Opportunities for Prevention   Howard Frumkin   Andrew L. Dannenberg     257
Creating Healthy Food Environments and Preventing Chronic Disease   Leslie Mikkelsen   Catherine S. Erickson   Marion Nestle     287
Strengthening the Collaboration Between Public Health and Criminal Justice to Prevent Violence   Deborah Prothrow-Stith     313
The Limits of Behavioral Interventions for HIV Prevention   Dan Wohlfeiler   Jonathan M. Ellen     329
Name Index     348
Subject Index     357