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9th Annual Conference

August 22–24, 2019

Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA

Creating a wellness web through community asset mapping

Saturday, August 24, 2019 at 4:15 PM–5:15 PM PDT add to calendar
O'Connor 102
Proposal Summary

The goal of this session is to introduce the concept of community asset mapping(CAM) as an approach to promote self care and social justice. CAM provides information about the strengths and resources of a community to help uncover solutions. Once these are identified and placed on a map, you can more easily think about how to build on these assets to address community needs and improve health. We plan on adapting this tool to assist practitioners in identifying a web of existing wellness resources within a community.

Medical care has focused on the deficits of the individual and has left out all the strengths of the patient located within their family and community units. By emphasizing what is lacking, it reduces the space for healing and creates a hierarchy between practitioner and patient resulting in health disparities in families and communities of under-served populations or communities historically under-represented in medicine. We propose that by using CAM, we can shift from a deficits-based towards a strength based approach and in the process encourage patient and community self-determination and self-empowerment.

The integrative medicine approach encourages the patient to be at the center of the care model, providing care depending on patient wishes and goals. This might be easier to accomplish within already existing health systems such as the VA and Integrative Centers. Community asset mapping may help us adapt the patient centered integrative medicine model for use in any community. Inventorying community resources will have the two-fold outcome of encouraging efficient use of existing resources, and it can also avoid burnout by encouraging practitioners to access some of the assets identified in their own community. This would also help providers become familiar with what they are recommending to patients. An additional benefit of using existing resources is that the burden of providing care can be shared among practitioners.

Skills or Experience

Presenter 1, MD frequently teaches medical students, residents, colleagues and other health professionals. She has presented at IM4US in the past and has taught a community asset mapping workshop with Marva and other colleagues at Albany Medical College. Presenter 2, MPH, Director of Community Outreach and Service Learning at Albany Medical College engages medical students in meaningful service learning.

Topic Keywords

Community Asset Mapping, Self care, inclusion, community wellness, advocacy.

Educational Methodology

Group Discussion/Working Groups: offer a forum and provide a framework for attendees to work in small groups to share experiences and identify best-practices in professional scenarios.

Other Educational Methodology

Large group discussion

Audience Skill Level

This session is appropriate for all audiences and skill levels

Primary Presenters

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Elena Rosenbaum, Albany Medical College and Albany Family Medicine
Degree/License Suffix

MD

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Marva M Richards, Albany Medical College
Degree/License Suffix

MPH

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Session Materials

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