Partnerships and Collaboration
This study describes the initial implementation phase and findings from a multi-year engagement process with community stakeholders to build a resilient, trauma-informed community in a vibrant, ethnically-diverse, and economically depressed town, Pottstown, PA. Pottstown can offer guidance about how to coordinate and scale a community-wide engagement process, drawing on principles of community psychology, population health science, and participatory team science. A central feature of this initial phase is the use of data to generate hypotheses rather than test them, as well as to collect data about these processes to provide a continuous empirical feedback loop to guide decision-making and action. The theoretical framework uses a multi-level approach that prioritizes the population through prevention, health promotion, and policy development, consistent with federal initiatives that have emphasized addressing social determinants of health to enhance public health. An important component of this approach is the creation of cross-sector community partnerships to address social determinants that affect population health.