People Focused Research: Creating Health in Brooklyn - Participatory Action Research in Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and East Flatbush (2017)
In the summer of 2017, NextShift, the Dubois-Bunche Center, and IMC recruited, trained, and supervised a 48-person community-based PAR research team, which included local high school and college students, as well as urban planning graduate students from across the country. The PAR II project sought to understand and investigate community perceptions of health and well-being in Central Brooklyn (Bedford Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Bushwick, Canarsie, Crown Heights, Cypress Hills/Ocean Hill, East Flatbush, East New York, Prospect Heights, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens)7, while focusing on and identifying priority social determinants of health in three neighborhoods: Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and East Flatbush. The research was guided by a core question “How can residents build power to pool existing assets and demand increased investment in a healthier, more supportive and more affordable Central Brooklyn now, and in the future?”Using a survey of 1,026 residents (collected over a two-and-a-half week period), four focus groups, and fifteen neighborhood stakeholder interviews,8 the team explored five health determinants and developed a set of recommendations and action steps to improve health in Central Brooklyn. The determinants of health include economic justice, youth and families, community and belonging, environmental justice, as well as housing and neighborhood services.