ABSTRACT
Ecological frameworks have long served as touchstones for those interested in prevention and health promotion. Ecological approaches focus attention on the reciprocal relationships between individuals and contexts, and compel one to look at multiple levels of influence in understanding the etiology of health problems (McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler & Glanz, 1988; Stokols, 1992; Winett, 1995). From this perspective, preventive interventions are more likely to be successful when there is an alignment of intervention strategies at the individual and environmental level (e.g., Dishion & Kavanagh, 2000). The notion of community level solutions has also become popular, for somewhat different reasons, among those concerned with empowerment, community capacity and, more recently, social capital. These concepts stress the importance of supporting grassroots participation, engaging multiple constituencies, increasing inter-organizational linkages and strengthening community problem-solving (e.g., Connell, Kubisch, Schorr, & Weiss, 1995; Minkler, 1997). Efforts to bring together a broad range of
community constituencies in addressing health problems also appeal to our sense of participatory democracy (Green & Kreuter, 2002). Together, these rationales have stimulated public agencies and foundations to sponsor a variety of multi-component, community-level interventions over the past decade (Wandersman & Florin, in press).
