How should health care organizations and communities work together to improve neighborhood conditions?

Abstract

In the past few decades, scholars have begun to establish ethical principles for public health engagement. A key tension has been how to reconcile public health improvement with local autonomy in decision making so as to express respect for community members' on-the-ground experience. This article describes the experience of one children's hospital in learning to ethically engage a surrounding community in conversations about housing development in partnership with a local faith-based development organization.