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The Community Child Well-being Tool: a framework for population health action

Year:
2014
Duration:
24 months
Approved budget:
$187,800.00
Researchers:
Dr Timothy Jelleyman
Health issue:
Child and youth (healthy) development
Proposal type:
Foxley Fellowship
Lay summary
I am a community paediatrician providing clinical leadership for child health in one of the largest and demographically diverse districts in New Zealand (Waitemata District Health Board). Building on my training, experience and extensive community and clinical networks, I aim to address a perennial challenge: engaging communities to advance the child health agenda, with local application and national relevance. 'Routinely available' child health statistics are rarely accessed or interpreted by the communities within which children live and grow. This research will develop a Community Child Well-being Tool - a framework to empower communities to use child health and development indicators to innovate sustainable local solutions. Community stakeholder groups will determine the representation and contextualisation of data to affect meaningful health action. Based on the premise that community ownership of information provides a robust foundation for effective advocacy, a participatory research approach will be used to design, implement and evaluate the tool.