During the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008, a team of five graduate students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health conducted an Action-Oriented Community Diagnosis (AOCD) of the community in Southeast Rocky Mount. AOCD is a component of the curriculum for graduate students in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. Historically, the teaching team has been approached by community members seeking an assessment of their community. These community members then act as preceptors to student teams, introducing them to the community and aiding in our AOCD process. The process itself involves interacting with community members and service providers to systematically collect information about community strengths and challenges. The student team in Rocky Mount interviewed 19 service providers and 14 community members, conducted 2 focus groups and attended 12 community events. On April 12, the team hosted a community forum in Southeast Rocky Mount (SERM), at which findings were presented back to the community. Through break-out groups focused on discussing particular emerging themes, community members and service providers created action steps to address these themes. Hence, the AOCD process transformed from a diagnosis made by outsiders to a series of commitments by community participants to addressing their collective needs. At the beginning of the AOCD process, the student team conducted a secondary data review to learn more about Southeast Rocky Mount’s health, economics, crime and education status. The team then compared this data to that of the city of Rocky Mount, Edgecombe County and/or North Carolina depending upon the sources of data available. Rocky Mount is divided between two counties, Nash and Edgecombe, which at times affected the availability of data. The team also collected primary data through interviews and focus groups, which were guided by a predetermined set of questions. These discussions with community members and service providers provided much richer qualitative information. Team members transcribed and coded this data to determine which themes occurred most frequently. Identified strengths of the community included the people within the community and the history of a strong, thriving African American community in the area, among others. Meanwhile, challenges identified included: disparities between resources available in Nash County and Edgecombe County; lack of reliable public transportation; limited educational opportunities for youth and young adults; limited recreational and enrichment activities for youth; limited employment opportunities; dilapidated and sub-standard housing conditions; crime due to drugs and gang violence; and limited collaboration between community resources. Through consideration of these strengths and challenges, along with the coded interview data, the student team developed a list of emerging themes. These themes were presented to the eight community members and service providers that made up the forum planning committee. These members helped select the final themes to be used at the April forum. The initial list included: Youth, Education, Employment, Transportation, Crime, Housing/Cost of living, Parenting, and Communication between existing community resources. These eight preliminary themes were then narrowed down to the final five themes that we presented at the community form. The final themes selected for presentation to the community were: Youth, Employment, Connecting Community Resources, Crime, Housing. Approximately 65 individuals attended the community forum. Overall, participants were enthusiastic and optimistic when discussing the selected themes. At the end of the day, action steps were created for each theme and individuals personally committed to completing those steps. A future date was set for the community members and service providers to meet, without the student team, so that the AOCD process could continue within and among the community.Master of Public Healt
