Abstract
The idea that health initiatives should be local is not altogether new. Going back to the passage of the Community Mental Health Act of 1963, efforts have been made to decentralize health services so that programs reflect the needs and perspectives of the intended communities. Clearly, a wide range of health practitioners recognize the value of a community’s perspective in shaping health care, especially if the intention is for programs to be sustainable in the long run. A central theme of this book, however, is that carrying the moniker of “community based” is not sufficient to ensure that health and other social interventions are relevant to those who utilize these programs. Similarly, projects run from within communities may have established elaborate networks with community members, but these connections may be superficial and short lived. At the core of these problems is the lack of a philosophy to help actualize community-based work. Without a proper guiding theory, projects will run the risk of missing the practices vital to providing community-based health care.