Home care workers (HCWs) are practitioners that deliver essential health services to patients in their own homes yet face a multitude of challenges: HCWs are physically distributed, vulnerable to exploitation, and work long hours with minimal opportunity for advancement. They are underappreciated and underrecognized for their expertise and role in care delivery. While peers can encourage professionalization and challenge exploitation, HCWs' isolation makes it difficult to access peers and other support. Computer-mediated communications (CMC) may be one way to reduce this isolation. This dissertation explores how HCWs used CMC tools to contact peers, and we describe the types of informational, emotional, and political support they shared. We draw from this exploration and past praxes in social justice to co-design and evaluate a peer-led online support program to connect HCWs to create peer support and collective empowerment. This program used a narrative and non-directive approach that encouraged participants to tell stories of their work and created a sense of voice. This approach aimed to realize a community-empowerment pedagogy to creating transformative social change by helping HCWs define collective purpose, values, and identity beyond supporting a diverse range of informational and emotional needs. We describe how HCW facilitators encouraged reflection on experiences and focused on the social aspects of home care work. This dissertation suggests how the design of technology interventions can create social change by fostering practitioner communities among HCWs and other distributed and marginalized practitioners in various contexts.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

"This edited reference book focuses on the empowerment of marginalized communities and the social movements, activism, and push for mitigating racism and discrimination amongst different industries and contexts by shedding light on social justice applications and practices internationally and the changes being made to promote equality, fair treatment, and inclusivity of marginalized communities"--

In early 2007, the Institute of Medicine convened the Roundtable on Health Disparities to increase the visibility of racial and ethnic health disparities as a national problem, to further the development of programs and strategies to reduce disparities, to foster the emergence of leadership on this issue, and to track promising activities and developments in health care that could lead to dramatically reducing or eliminating disparities. The Roundtable's first workshop, Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities, was held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 31, 2007, and examined (1) the importance of differences in life expectancy within the United States, (2) the reasons for those differences, and (3) the implications of this information for programs and policy makers.

Cultura y Corazón is a research approach and practice that is rooted in the work of Latinx and Chicanx scholars and intellectuals. The book documents best practices for Community Based and Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), which is both culturally attuned and scientifically demonstrated. This methodology takes a decolonial approach to engaging community members in the research process and integrates critical feminist and indigenous epistemologies. Cultura y Corazón presents case studies from the authors’ work within the fields of education and health. It offers key strategies to working in partnership with marginalized Latinx communities that are grounded in deep respect for the communities’ cultures and lived experiences. This book is intended for students, researchers, and practitioners who want to work with vulnerable populations through a community-based approach that truly respects and integrates culture, values, and funds of knowledge.

This book discusses how aspects of connectedness, resilience and empowerment are intertwined in community development processes. It explicitly brings together these elements in the context of community development and well-being, helping foster an understanding of how each influences the other. With chapters contributed by scholars from around the globe, this volume provides insights into how these elements of community influence and support the quality of life of communities. While several of the chapters address the foundational and theoretical bases of community development as well as community well-being, others address topical and emergent areas of interest in community development practice and scholarship. Underscoring the chapters is an awareness of the importance of the community spirit, which is the voice and agency of people coming together to encourage social transformation. A key element of the book is also to help foster change for the better in communities. This book is of interest to researchers and professionals working in the area of community engagement and development, particularly those in resource-poor countries.