Abstract
An ecosystem approach to community health seeks to investigate human health concerns from an ecological perspective. The goal is to improve the health of community members by instituting sustainable ecosystem management strategies that will preserve the health of both the ecosystem and its inhabitants. This article reports on a study in a rural community in Ghana that employed an ecosystem approach to community health planning. Adopting a participatory action research approach, a research team comprised of representatives from various local government departments collaborated with local residents to identify major community health problems, their underlying causes, and possible intervention strategies. The findings illustrate the usefulness of the ecosystem approach to mobilizing community-based interventions to addressing environmental determinants of human health.
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Acknowledgments
I thank the Ecohealth Program Initiative of Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for funding the fieldwork of this study. Sincere thanks to all community members and professionals who participated in this study.
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Dakubo, C. Ecosystem Approach to Community Health Planning in Ghana. EcoHealth 1, 50–59 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-004-0001-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-004-0001-1