Building community capacity in public health: the role of action-oriented partnerships.

Public health practice increasingly is concerned with the capacity and performance of communities to identify, implement, strengthen, and sustain collective efforts to improve health. The authors developed ways to assist local Turning Point partnerships to improve their community public health system as a secondary outcome of their work on the expressed needs of the community. Using focus groups, meeting minutes, attendance records, and meeting observation, the authors fed information back to the partnerships on systems change. A public health systems improvement plan supportive of local partnerships' work on specific health issues was funded and the collaborative research agenda was further refined.

Respiratory symptoms and risk factors in an Arizona population sample of Anglo and Mexican-American whites.

Prevalence rates of respiratory symptoms and diseases in a large group of Anglos and Mexican-Americans were analyzed. Each subject completed a questionnaire. Among current smokers, chronic productive cough and dyspnea were significantly higher in both ethnic groups; wheezy symptoms were higher in Anglos. There were no significant differences in the symptom prevalence rates between the two groups, after stratifying by current cigarette consumption and CRT. The spirometric values were not significantly different. In both ethnic groups, the prevalence rates of wheeze, SOBWHZ and asthma were significantly higher in those who had CRT. Among Anglos, less educated smokers had significantly higher prevalence rates of SOBWHZ and dyspnea; nonsmokers with less education had higher prevalence rates of cough, chronic cough and dyspnea. Our results confirm the importance of CRT and lower educational level as risk factors for respiratory symptoms. Ethnicity is not associated with symptomatology or lung function impairment.