February 2020 – December 2022

Agency, Belonging & Health

Examining the biomedical evidence linking agency, belonging and health

I reviewed the biomedical literature to understand whether empirical research supported the observation that agency and a sense of belonging were related to better health. I found an encouraging, if disorganized, evidence base. In 2022, I used the findings of this review in a Policy Insight article in Health Affairs on how community power can dismantle policy-based structural inequities. This project was in partnership with the California Endowment.

Publications

  • Iton 2022, Building community power to dismantle policy-based structural inequity in population health cover
  • The Bio-Medical Evidence Linking Community Agency and Health

Related Posts

  • Power & Belonging

    Pritpal S Tamber | July 10, 2025
    How agency and power are fueled by belonging and how belonging requires agency and power

  • Our Article in Health Affairs on Community Power

    Pritpal S Tamber | December 8, 2022
    Building on theoretical and empirical research, we describe what community power is and why it’s fundamental to structural change and health equity

  • A Model Linking Community Engagement, Health Improvement and Community Power

    Pritpal S Tamber | April 7, 2022
    How the health sector can foster the individual and social outcomes that are key to a community having power

  • How the Experts Think about Power and Belonging

    Pritpal S Tamber | March 24, 2022
    From middle-class prejudice and John Henryism to how power works and what exactly is change

  • Mapping Empirical Research to the Theories

    Pritpal S Tamber | March 10, 2022
    Knowing which theories linking community power and health are backed by empirical research may inform your theory of change

  • Observations on the Research into Community Power

    Pritpal S Tamber | February 24, 2022
    The things that stood out from the 81 articles classified as medium or low quality

  • How Community Power Influences Health

    Pritpal S Tamber | February 10, 2022
    Beyond health outcomes, there are changes in the community members involved and the social fabric between them

  • The Theories Connecting Community Power to Health

    Pritpal S Tamber | January 27, 2022
    A synthesis of the many theories on how community power can reduce inequities in health

  • The Evidence Linking Community Power to Health

    Pritpal S Tamber | January 13, 2022
    The research I’ve been doing since February 2020 and how Popay’s 2006 model on community engagement helped

  • The Evidence Linking Community Agency & Health

    Pritpal S Tamber | October 30, 2020
    It’s messy, some of it is good, and there is an encouraging uniformity to the findings