Partnering with community-organizing groups practice brief
Cette ressource est également disponible en français.
Why community organizing and building community power matter for public health
There is growing recognition in the public health community that addressing the structural and social determinants of health and advancing health equity requires shifting the underlying structures that maintain patterns of inequity. To begin shifting those patterns, public health can redistribute and build power with communities facing inequities.
Building community power is recognized as a critical area for public health in the Core competencies for public health in Canada: Release 2.0. One way public health can support community power building and advance health equity is through community organizing.
Public health roles to support community organizing
Community organizers bring lived expertise, leadership, community trust, strategic relationships and collective power to the table. Public health can learn from and partner with community organizers in transformational ways to share learnings and resources and foster collective action.
Using the well-established public health roles for health equity framework, this practice brief provides guidance for public health to support community organizing. For each role — assess and report, modify and orient interventions, partner with other sectors, participate in policy development — specific action steps are outlined and then illustrated through a real-world example.
The brief concludes with a series of questions to guide public health action. When working with community organizers, it is critical to centre the priorities of the community groups, assess available public health resources and skills, and determine how these can be shared effectively.
Use this resource to
- Identify gaps, set priorities and make decisions about how to begin or deepen action with community-organizing partners
- Guide partnership building with community organizers to advance health equity
- Facilitate discussion about community organizing as a tool for public health to address structural and social determinants of health and advance health equity
Related resources
Let’s Talk: Community organizing
Public Health Speaks: Public health’s role in community organizing
Community organizing and public health: A rapid review
Let’s Talk: Redistributing power to advance health equity
Webinar: Community organizing: A community power-building approach to advancing health equity
See more resources on community organizing and public health.
Reference
National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. (2025). Partnering with community-organizing groups practice brief. Antigonish, NS: NCCDH, St. Francis Xavier University.
Tags: Community engagement, Methods & tools, Modify and orient interventions, Partner with other sectors, Document, Practice Brief