Introduction

This course focuses on working with communities. It follows on from Introducing public health which introduced you to multidisciplinary public health. This course puts forward some ideas about how to build an initial picture of a community, how to research a community, get to know it, both formally and informally, and work constructively in partnership with it. In doing so, it gives you a sense of the nature and approach of community-based public health work.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of factors to consider when planning to research a chosen community
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of approaches that will facilitate engagement at the community level
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of skills required to work constructively with communities.