Larry Dickerson
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Cooperative Extension Service
2221 E. Northern Lights Blvd. , Rm. 107
Anchorage, AK 99508
(907) 786-6315, (907) 279-2716

This is part of the “Healthy Community Program” to help indigenous villages in Alaska plan for and guide them into the future based on their culture, sense of place and the unique considerations of rural Alaska. The goals were to provide a planning process that fits indigenous rural Alaska, build local capacities in villages to design and implement their own planning and decision-making processes based on the local culture, and providing baseline indicators to guide the community into then future.

The target audience is rural Alaska. The educational resource was the writing and publication of Creating Healthy Communities, the Process of Community Discovery. Outcomes have been capacities built, community plans developed and implemented. This was also used in Australia with Aboriginal groups to help them build local capacities in community development.

This will be an interactive workshop demonstrating the process of defining community health.