Involving the Target Community in Health Education Planning: The Community Network Strategy

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Abstract
Health educators recognize the value of involving the community in needs assessment and planning activities but have difficulty identifying and involving people who truly reflect the target population's health perspective, particularly in disadvantaged and underserved communities. This article describes the Community Network Strategy (CNS), a technique enabling health educators to systematically penetrate successive layers of the community to find citizens who reflect the program's intended users. In a test of the CNS's utility, it was used to recruit women for four needs assessment focus groups for a mammography program in a low income, rural area. The CNS was consistently able to identify women who were socioeconomically disadvantaged and medically underserved, well-removed from the community's service structure, showed a range of demographic characteristics, and reflected important variations in the target communities' perceptions regarding mammograms. The strategy also elicited a high degree of cooperation from the women identified, and its use provided an opportunity to cultivate community interest and support for the program along the way. By facilitating the involvement of members of a target population, the CNS is a promising tool for health educators to use in planning programs that reflect the community's needs and interests.

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