Partnerships in Public Health: Lessons From Knowledge Translation and Program Planning

Introduction: Partnerships play a central role in public health care and health promotion, and have been acknowledged as an important part of knowledge translation (KT). Partnerships are an essential part of program planning and are often made between public health professionals and community stakeholders. Through a shifting landscape of public health, partnerships have been reconfigured, tied to changes in practice guidelines, funding mechanisms and the increasing drive for multi-sector collaborations. In an effort to make better (research informed) decisions, many health professionals are recognizing the value of KT, and the inherent role of partnerships. In order to ensure effective partnerships in the context of public health, we need to explore what is currently being done to see what works and what does not and capture some of the benefits and challenges of these types of relationships. Partnership relationships are not uncommon in public health. Public health professionals, and public health units or health authorities, frequently work in partnership with health and health-related agencies around program planning as well as with other key stakeholders (including the community, media and researchers). In some jurisdictions partnerships are legislated. Ontario, for example, has included partnerships with community stakeholders within the recently mandated Public Health Standards (Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, 2008). The British Columbia Public Health Core Functions document also describes partnerships with community groups as a desirable way of working (Ministry of Health Services, 2005). For our purpose, we have defined community as: a specific group of people, often living in a defined geographical area, who share a common culture, values and norms and are arranged in a social structure according to relationships that the community has developed over a period of time. …They exhibit some awareness o