We recently completed a paper that suggests that community-based
participatory research that does not take an explicit public policy
approach that addresses broader determinants of health can deteriorate into
an exercise in futility.  The full paper is available: Please direct
requests directly to [log in to unmask] and NOT to the list -  dr.

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Identifying and Strengthening the Structural Roots of Urban Health:
Participatory Policy Research and the Urban Health Agenda

Toba Bryant, PhD, Centre for Research on Inner City Health, St. Michael’s
Hospital, Toronto, Canada

Dennis Raphael, PhD, School of Health Policy and Management, York
University, Toronto, Canada

Robb Travers, PhD, Ontario HIV Treatment Network, Toronto, Canada

Summary
An urban health research agenda for health promoters is presented. In
Canada, urban issues are emerging as a major concern of policy makers. The
voices raising these issues are from the non-health sectors, but many of
these issues such as increasing income inequality and poverty, homelessness
and housing insecurity, and social exclusion of youth, immigrants, and
ethno-racial minorities have strong health implications as they are
important social determinants of health.  Emphasis on these and other
social determinants of health and the policy decisions that strengthen or
weaken them is timely as the quality of Canadian urban environments has
become especially problematic. We argue for a participatory urban health
research and action agenda with four components: a) an emphasis on health
promotion and the social determinants of health; b) community-based
participatory research; and c) drawing on the lived experience of people to
influence d) policy analysis and policy change.  Urban health researchers
and promoters are urged to draw upon new developments in population health
and community-based health promotion theory and research to identify and
strengthen the roots of urban health through citizen action on public
policy