IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v165y2016icp214-222.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cultures of engagement: The organizational foundations of advancing health in immigrant and low-income communities of color

Author

Listed:
  • Bloemraad, Irene
  • Terriquez, Veronica

Abstract

A rich civic infrastructure of community-based organizations (CBOs) can help generate, diffuse and maintain a culture of engagement and health that benefits marginalized populations most at risk for illness, disability, and poor health. Attention to CBOs advances “meso-level” frameworks for understanding health cultures and outcomes by going beyond attention to social networks and social identities. We focus on three mechanisms: CBOs can (1) empower individuals by developing civic capacity and personal efficacy; (2) foster solidarity by building networks, social identities and a shared commitment to collective well-being; and (3) mobilize people to have a voice in health-related policies and programming, thereby affecting community well-being. We draw on theory and research in sociology, political science and psychology, and we illustrate the utility of a CBO approach by examining survey and semi-structured interview data from participants in youth civic groups in 13 low-income, predominantly immigrant communities in California. Interview data illustrate the ways in which CBOs enhance members' civic capacities, provide a sense of empowerment and efficacy to engage in healthy behaviors, develop solidarity among diverse participants, and elaborate networks among those committed to community well-being. We also discuss CBO-led campaigns in which youth mobilized for change in policies and practices of local institutions to illustrate possible community-wide health consequences of CBO engagement. CBOs can thus generate individual-level well-being effects, and reduce structural barriers to good health through changes in the broader environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Bloemraad, Irene & Terriquez, Veronica, 2016. "Cultures of engagement: The organizational foundations of advancing health in immigrant and low-income communities of color," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 214-222.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:165:y:2016:i:c:p:214-222
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.02.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616300582
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.02.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giordano, Giuseppe N. & Lindstrom, Martin, 2010. "The impact of changes in different aspects of social capital and material conditions on self-rated health over time: A longitudinal cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 700-710, March.
    2. Berkman, Lisa F. & Glass, Thomas & Brissette, Ian & Seeman, Teresa E., 2000. "From social integration to health: Durkheim in the new millennium," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 843-857, September.
    3. Mehta, Neil K. & Lee, Hedwig & Ylitalo, Kelly R., 2013. "Child health in the United States: Recent trends in racial/ethnic disparities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 6-15.
    4. Cruwys, Tegan & Dingle, Genevieve A. & Haslam, Catherine & Haslam, S. Alexander & Jetten, Jolanda & Morton, Thomas A., 2013. "Social group memberships protect against future depression, alleviate depression symptoms and prevent depression relapse," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 179-186.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Piotr Bialowolski & Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska & Eileen McNeely, 2021. "The Role of Financial Fragility and Financial Control for Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 1137-1157, June.
    2. Midas Hampton & Sabine O’Hara & Elizabeth Gearin, 2024. "Assessing Restorative Community Development Frameworks—A Meso-Level and Micro-Level Integrated Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Evelien Tonkens & Imrat Verhoeven, 2019. "The civic support paradox: Fighting unequal participation in deprived neighbourhoods," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(8), pages 1595-1610, June.
    4. Chan, Randolph C.H. & Mak, Winnie W.S., 2020. "Empowerment for civic engagement and well-being in emerging adulthood: Evidence from cross-regional and cross-lagged analyses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    5. Bialowolski, Piotr & Weziak-Bialowolska, Dorota & McNeely, Eileen, 2021. "A socially responsible financial institution – The bumpy road to improving consumer well-being," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Damiano Fiorillo & Giuseppe Lubrano Lavadera & Nunzia Nappo, 2020. "Individual Heterogeneity in the Association Between Social Participation and Self-rated Health: A Panel Study on BHPS," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 645-667, September.
    2. Lorenzo Rocco & Elena Fumagalli & Marc Suhrcke, 2014. "From Social Capital To Health – And Back," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 586-605, May.
    3. Eriksson, Malin & Ng, Nawi, 2015. "Changes in access to structural social capital and its influence on self-rated health over time for middle-aged men and women: A longitudinal study from northern Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 250-258.
    4. Fiorillo Damiano & Sabatini Fabio, 2011. "Quality and quantity: The role of social interactions in individual health," wp.comunite 0073, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    5. Fiorillo, Damiano & Sabatini, Fabio, 2011. "Quality and quantity: The role of social interactions in self-reported individual health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(11), pages 1644-1652.
    6. Haslam, S. Alexander & McMahon, Charlotte & Cruwys, Tegan & Haslam, Catherine & Jetten, Jolanda & Steffens, Niklas K., 2018. "Social cure, what social cure? The propensity to underestimate the importance of social factors for health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 14-21.
    7. Dingle, Genevieve A. & Haslam, Catherine & Best, David & Chan, Gary & Staiger, Petra K. & Savic, Michael & Beckwith, Melinda & Mackenzie, Jock & Bathish, Ramez & Lubman, Dan I., 2019. "Social identity differentiation predicts commitment to sobriety and wellbeing in residents of therapeutic communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Kimiko Tomioka & Norio Kurumatani & Hiroshi Hosoi, 2015. "Social Participation and the Prevention of Decline in Effectance among Community-Dwelling Elderly: A Population-Based Cohort Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-13, September.
    9. Cornwell, Benjamin & Laumann, Edward O., 2015. "The health benefits of network growth: New evidence from a national survey of older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 94-106.
    10. Rosaria Lumino & Giancarlo Ragozini & Marijtje Duijn & Maria Prosperina Vitale, 2017. "A mixed-methods approach for analysing social support and social anchorage of single mothers’ personal networks," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 779-797, March.
    11. Jenny Gierveld & Pearl A. Dykstra & Niels Schenk, 2012. "Living arrangements, intergenerational support types and older adult loneliness in Eastern and Western Europe," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(7), pages 167-200.
    12. Santini, Ziggi Ivan & Jose, Paul E. & Koyanagi, Ai & Meilstrup, Charlotte & Nielsen, Line & Madsen, Katrine R. & Koushede, Vibeke, 2020. "Formal social participation protects physical health through enhanced mental health: A longitudinal mediation analysis using three consecutive waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in E," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    13. Daniel Graeber, 2017. "Does More Education Protect against Mental Health Problems?," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 113, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Zihan Cai & Ming Lu, 2018. "Social Integration Measurement of Inhabitants in Historic Blocks: The Case of Harbin, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-19, August.
    15. Maria Pavlova & Rainer Silbereisen & Kamil Sijko, 2014. "Social Participation in Poland: Links to Emotional Well-Being and Risky Alcohol Consumption," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 29-44, May.
    16. Liping Ye & Xinping Zhang, 2021. "The association mechanism between social network types and health‐related behaviours among the elderly in rural Hubei Province, China," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 826-846, May.
    17. Kanbur, Ravi & Fleurbaey, Marc & Viney, Brody, 2020. "Social Externalities and Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 15179, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Francis, Jacinta & Wood, Lisa J. & Knuiman, Matthew & Giles-Corti, Billie, 2012. "Quality or quantity? Exploring the relationship between Public Open Space attributes and mental health in Perth, Western Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1570-1577.
    19. Miranda L. Ritterman & S. Leonard Syme, 2009. "The importance of community development for health and well-being," Community Development Innovation Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue 3, pages 001-013.
    20. Monika Ardelt, 2016. "Disentangling the Relations Between Wisdom and Different Types of Well-Being in Old Age: Findings from a Short-Term Longitudinal Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1963-1984, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:165:y:2016:i:c:p:214-222. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.