The Community Engagement Strategies Guide highlights top-line strategies that CBOs should consider when planning an initiative or program. It provides resources for more information about the strategies, pinpoints important how-tos, and includes helpful notes.

Community Health and Program Services (CHAPS) builds healthy communities and eliminates health disparities by providing national leadership in community health promotion and disease prevention through innovative programs, such as: Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Across the U.S. (REACH U.S.), the Preventive Health and Health Services (PHHS) Block Grant, State-Based Epidemiology for Public Health Programs (STEPPS), and YMCA's Pioneering Healthier Communities. These cross-cutting programs help expand CDC's ability to develop community-based health promotion strategies.

Promoting Health Equity-A Resource to Help Communities Address Social Determinants of Health:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dach/chaps/pdf/SDOHworkbook.pdf

EPA and CDC are sponsoring a series of Webinars based on the CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. These Webinars are free and open to anyone with an interest in program evaluation. Examples will be drawn from state and local asthma intervention programs. The Webinars include a presentation, followed by a moderated question and answer session with the presenters. All Webinar materials are archived on the Communities in Action for Asthma-Friendly Environments Online Network .

The second session in the Program Evaluation Webinar Series, Getting Started and Engaging your Stakeholders, draws upon the Framework guidance and digs deeper into the critical first steps in designing and implementing an evaluation.

On April 23-24, 2008, the Health Education Council (HEC) conducted its first national conference, Promising Practices from the Field: Tobacco Control Strategies for Priority Populations – an overwhelming success! This conference highlighted 2 HEC programs - the National African American Tobacco Education Network (NAATEN) and the National Network on Tobacco Prevention and Poverty (NNTPP) - as well as the work of other agencies and organizations seeking to eliminate tobacco-related disparities.

Over 200 participants attended the conference, representing 32 stat es as well as Canada. Conference evaluations revealed that participants were engaged and rated the sessions as extremely relevant to improving their work in tobacco control. Much of the conference's success can be attributed to both excellent speakers and NNTPP/NAATEN Stakeholders, who played a major role in the conference by moderating, speaking and facilitating.

Having received an overwhelming number of requests from conference attendees to make the presentation slides from each track available on-line, we have compiled most of the presentations for you and have made them available here: www.healthedcouncil.org/nntpp and www.healthedcouncil.org/naaten.

If you missed out on the conference this year, the presentations slides are a great way to stay informed on some of the groundbreaking discussions that took place in Detroit.

From CDC Preventing Chronic Disease Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy Volume 5: No. 4, October 2008