Improving the Nutritional Resource Environment for Healthy Living Through Community-based Participatory Research

OBJECTIVES: To build health promotion capacity among community residents through a community-based participatory model, and to apply this model to study the nutritional environment of an urban area to better understand the role of such resources in residents' efforts to live a healthy life. DESIGN: A multiphase collaborative study that inventoried selected markets in targeted areas of high African-American concentration in comparison with markets in a contrasting wealthier area with fewer African Americans. SETTING: A community study set in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. PARTICIPANTS: African-American community organizations and community residents in the target areas. INTERVENTIONS: Two surveys of market inventories were conducted. The first was a single-sheet form profiling store conditions and the availability of a small selection of healthy foods. The second provided detailed information on whether the store offered fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, dried goods and other items necessary for residents to consume a nutritious diet. RESULTS: The targeted areas were significantly less likely to have important items for living a healthier life. The variety and quality of fresh fruit and vegetable produce was significantly lower in the target areas. Such products as 1% milk, skim milk, low-fat and nonfat cheese, soy milk, tofu, whole grain pasta and breads, and low-fat meat and poultry items were sig-nificantly less available. CONCLUSIONS: Healthy food products were significantly less available in the target areas. The authors conclude from these results that the health disparities experienced by African-American communities have origins that extend beyond the health delivery system and individual behaviors inasmuch as adherence to the healthy lifestyle associated with low chronic disease risk is more difficult in resource-poor neighborhoods than in resource-rich ones

Leadership in the transition from a socialist to a market economy : multi-stakeholder perceptions of business leadership in Vietnam

While Vietnam is a socialist country with a collectivist culture, it has been in transition toward a more market-oriented economy, but it is still within the control of government. Economic reform has been receptive to foreign investment (Nguyen, 2005), and the country can now be understood to represent a type of market-oriented socialism (Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, 2001; Nguyen, 2005; Harm, 2013). One of the fundamental changes in the economy was the development of different forms of enterprise governance, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), foreign invested enterprises (FIEs), and privately owned enterprises (POEs).However, among these diverse types of organizations, perceptions of leadership have not yet been clearly explored. Vietnamese business leaders have lacked the knowledge and experience of operating businesses in market-driven economies and using Western management practices (Schermerhorn, 2000; Napier & Thomas, 2004; Napier, 2005). Further, the Marxist-Leninist Vietnamese education system that adopts a centrally planned socialist structure has focused on a production (rather than demand) economy. This has left Vietnamese business leaders insufficiently prepared to engage with Western business models or to compete effectively during international trade (Napier, 2005). Adoption of some Western business approaches has led to shifts in leadership styles in Vietnam, although this has not been clearly understood. The applicability of Western leadership theories to collectivist cultures, including Vietnam, has been a neglected area of leadership research. The importance and value of leadership is also regarded differently across cultures, but such distinctions are still relatively unknown (House et al., 2004). Leadership research has also neglected the opinions of stakeholders. While stakeholders’ perceptions of leadership are known to be complex and uncertain, at least in part due to varying cultural perspectives (House et al., 2004), stakeholders’ perceptions of leadership in collectivist cultures have not yet been adequately investigated