Real-World Challenges of Promoting Community Health

Over the past 30 years health promotion efforts have been targeted at the local level, recognizing that this is the locus of innovative, grassroots efforts to improve the health of the community. Yet addressing the realities of working with local communities is considered to be outside the purview of the public health field; therefore, community-level efforts are ignored. Although we support the recommendations made by the National Expert Panel on Community Health Promotion (1), there are several challenges to be faced in accomplishing these goals.