August 23, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health
by Frances Dunn Butterfoss
“Coalitions and partnerships of all shapes and sizes have sprung up across the United States and in other parts of the world as well,” writes Frances Dunn Butterfoss, a professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Such collaboration has proliferated especially in the past 20 years.
Seeking to provide a comprehensive guidebook to “building, sustaining, and nurturing” community-health coalitions, Dr. Butterfoss draws heavily from scholarly research on communities, as well as practical, real-life examples of such partnerships.
She argues that health-care coalitions are able to “bring community issues to the forefront by connecting community members with diverse ideas and skills; collect data about health status and access to care from hard-to-reach populations; help community-based organizations develop feasible and integrated services.” And they can accomplish those things, she says, better than individual groups can on their own.
Divided into four parts, the book discusses the background of health-care coalitions, their organization and structure, marketing and financial support, and planning and programs.
“The question is not, Do coalitions work? but, What do we still have to learn about how to make them work better?” writes Dr. Butterfoss.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94103; (800) 956-7739; fax (317) 572-4002; http://www.josseybass.com; 579 pages; $55; ISBN 978-0-7879-8785-5.
