The Health Action Fund: A community-based approach to enhancing health

This article is based on a program that was developed by the Center for Hea lthy Communities (CHC), a community-academic partnership in Dayton, Ohio, t hat continues to act as a force for change in health professions' education and health delivery, stressing the philosophy of "doing with" instead of " doing for" or "doing to." The Health Action Fund is a grassroots health communications and social mar keting program that targets community groups who are involved often in heal th promotion activities developed by large agencies. However, rather than t aking the traditional approach to health promotion and prevention where pro gram development and implementation is left to professionals, a different a pproach was taken that encourages members of neighborhoods, a community gro up, or a church to identify a problem and then develop a way to address tha t problem for their group. The program focuses on neighbors helping neighbo rs where communities take the lead in health promotion and prevention activ ities. We discuss in detail the project's innovation, challenges and how they have been addressed, qualitative and quantitative improvements made to the prog ram, and how the program serves as a model for other communities.