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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Electronic networks, community intermediaries, and the public's health.

Information technology (IT) has the potential to assist disadvantaged communities in gaining access to mainstream resources, and to a new kind of community health-supporting infrastructure. Federal and state information technology policy will affect how and how well community institutions can reach their goals, collaborate with service agencies, and effectively advocate investing essential, health-supporting resources in their communities. The current information technology focus of the health professions is institution and provider-oriented. It should have a wider scope to include community-based organizations. Laborious efforts undertaken by community-based organizations (CBOs) with only a patchwork of resources and without policy support suggest their value to the public's health. Increasingly burdened public health organizations should examine the public health interest in closing the gap between IT-poor and IT-rich organizations and develop a strategy for building inclusive electronic webs with CBOs.

Community Networks↗
PubMed1996

Developing community networks to deliver HIV prevention interventions.

Outreach has a long history in health and social service programs as an important method for reaching at-risk persons within their communities. One method of "outreach" is based on the recruitment of networks of community members (or "networkers") to deliver HIV prevention messages and materials in the context of their social networks and everyday lives. This paper documents the experiences of the AIDS Community Demonstration Projects in recruiting networkers to deliver HIV prevention interventions to high-risk populations, including injecting drug users not in treatment; female sex partners of injecting drug users; female sex traders; men who have sex with men but do not self-identify as gay; and youth in high-risk situations. The authors interviewed project staff and reviewed project records of the implementation of community networks in five cities. Across cities, the projects successfully recruited persons into one or more community networks to distribute small media materials, condoms, and bleach kits, and encourage risk-reduction behaviors among community members. Networkers' continuing participation was enlisted through a variety of monetary and nonmonetary incentives. While continuous recruitment of networkers was necessary due to attrition, most interventions reported maintaining a core group of networkers. In addition, the projects appeared to serve as a starting point for some networkers to become more active in other community events and issues.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1996

Establishing a community network for recruitment of African Americans into a clinical trial. The African-American antiplatelet stroke Prevention Study (AAASPS) experience.

A major aspect of a clinical trial is the ability to successfully recruit patients. There is a paucity of information concerning the nuances of recruiting study patients, especially those from minority communities. As minorities generally have been underrepresented in the health-care system, they may be less likely to participate in clinical trials or other studies. Thus, a strategy is needed to overcome this potential shortfall. One of our solutions has been the development of a community network to help disseminate information about our program. We believe that a key aspect has been the involvement of community members during pre-trial planning, community awareness programs, and our Community Advisory Panel. We also believe that it may be a major error to bring a health-care initiative unannounced into a targeted community without extensive pre-program planning in cooperation with that community. As our community awareness scheme suggests (Figure), there are many possible avenues to heighten awareness about a health-care program. While the church remains an important institution for religious and cultural activities in the African-American community, we have found that the news, television, and radio media also can be a powerful source for spreading awareness. Thus, we recommend creating awareness about an initiative through a "grassroots" approach of church and community organizations, along with a global approach through news, television, and radio media. As part of the awareness promotion campaign, it must be emphasized that the study is safe and provides benefits to enrollees. The success of health programs is largely dependent on community acceptance, which must be established in the pre-program planning stages of the initiative. This concept of obtaining community approval and acceptance prior to program initiation is not a new one, nor does it exclusively apply to the African-American community. Community leaders and members need to have a vested interest in such a program and a sense of empowerment. Through this type of communication, patient enrollment and community satisfaction can be substantial. Such success can serve as a springboard for other targeted health-care studies or programs in high-risk communities.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1976

Community network therapy: an approach to aiding families with troubled children.

This paper outlines a method of working with troubled children that draws upon structural family therapy, school consultation, patient advocacy, and community mental health work. This blending of approaches is presented as the basis for an evolving mode of treatment referred to as community network therapy. Four of its principal dimensions are described, and examples of its clinical application are offered.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Elders using a community network: profile of a champion.

Computer networks serve as convenient, efficient, and enduring vehicles for delivering nursing services to patients at home. The ComputerLink, a nurse-supervised computer network, provides information, decision support, and communication services to caregivers of people with Alzheimer's Disease [1]. The data obtained in the original experiment included daily logs of each caregiver's use of ComputerLink (n=606 days), records of each caregiver's ComputerLink access behavior (47 subjects; 3875 accesses), and transcripts of the public communications (n=749) posted on the ComputerLink's open electronic bulletin board. In this paper, we present a case study of an early user's pattern of connections to ComputerLink as an atypical example of how elders make use of computer networks.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Exploring the determinants of support provision: provider characteristics, personal networks, community contexts, and support following life events.

To explore the determinants of support provision in the natural disaster context, we followed House (1981) and developed a model that specifies how characteristics of the providers, their personal networks, and the community contexts in which they live facilitate or impede their ability to provide support. All three sets of factors affected support provision during Hurricane Andrew, but the pattern of effects differs for the preparation and short-term recovery phases of the hurricane. Age, income, network density, and local economic conditions had significant effects on support provision in the preparation phase. Income did not have a significant effect on short-term recovery support, but religion, house damage, the size and diversity dimensions of network structure, and the local bonds and sentiments dimensions of community attachment did. After comparing the explanatory power of our model in the two phases, we conclude by investigating the implications of this test for understanding the determinants of support provision more generally.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Using a community networking approach in a bereavement program.

This paper reviews the history of St. Anthony's Hospice and Life Enrichment Program. St. Anthony's provides bereavement counseling and death education to the community using a networking approach involving the educational, religious, social, and mental health organizations in the area. At present, this model features a church satellite program, grief recovery and anticipatory grief seminars, on-going bereavement support and social support groups, volunteer speakers' bureau, a volunteer staffed bereavement team, and training of psychology, nursing, and medical students.

Bereavement↗
PubMed1985

The use of community networks for chronic psychiatric patients.

This paper describes a program, the Work Readiness Seminar, designed in collaboration with a community organization, the Altrusa Club, to respond to needs of chronic psychiatric female patients. The five sessions of the program provide the women with information about everyday survival skills and an opportunity to practice these skills. The excellent role models provided by the Altrusa Club members and the programming of life skills "in vivo" are the strengths of the program. This paper also briefly describes three additional programs that evolved from the Work Readiness Seminar. All four programs use community groups as a resource for teaching life skills to chronic psychiatric patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Predicting self-esteem, well-being, and distress in a cohort of gay men: the importance of cultural stigma, personal visibility, community networks, and positive identity.

Homosexual and bisexual men (N = 825) enrolled in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study in Chicago completed a 90-minute self-administered questionnaire that included the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a Well-Being Index, and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. Participants indicated their experiences with gay stigma, their visibility as gay men, their involvement in the gay community, and their commitment to a positive gay identity. Data from this predominantly white, young, educated, and middle-class cohort are consistent with a structural model in which cultural stigma is negatively associated with positive self-perceptions. This within-group result contrasts sharply with between-group results that indicate our gay cohort was neither particularly low in global self-esteem nor high in psychological distress when compared to nonstigmatized samples.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Smart technology, stunted policy: developing health information networks.

Ideally, computer networks should help raise the quality of health care, reduce its cost, and enable consumers and providers to make smarter decisions. But government and the private sector have failed to resolve such critical problems as the protection of medical privacy and production of reliable comparative data on plans and providers. While individual enterprises are building information networks, community networks serving public purposes have lagged. An information revolution in health care is the making, but the hope that it will allow consumers and providers to make smarter choices is still far from being realized.

Community Health Services↗
PubMed1994

An information network for community medical care.

An information network for community medical care was established by the Himeji Medical Association in 1987. The network interconnects through public telephone a central computer located at the office of the Medical Association with personal computers installed in the offices of members of the Association. An overview of the network, which is in full operation, is given, and current problems and future directions are discussed.

Community Health Services↗
PubMed1979

Changing orientations among cocaine users: consequences of involvement in community distribution networks.

A study of 44 participants in a rural community cocaine network was conducted to determine the factors associated with increased expenditures for cocaine and the consequences of such involvement. Through correlational analysis techniques, four major categories of variables were shown to be strongly related to extent of involvement: demographic, purchasing ability, supply opportunities, and cost-reduction efforts. The major effects of increased involvement were an increase in egocentrism in relations with drug-using friends, a decline in self-control over administration, heightened concerns about possession, and strengthened justifications regarding drug use.

Adult↗