Toward resourcefulness: Pathways for community positive health

Abstract   Communities play a central role in strengthening their health, but conventional community health promotion often adopts paternalistic and top-down approaches. Conversely, agentic approaches are critiqued for tasking marginalized communities to create change without opportunities. Taking into consideration these shortcomings, we ask how communities may be most effectively and appropriately supported in their pursuit of health. We review community health literature to articulate how community health is understood, moving from negative to positive conceptions; determined, moving from a risk-factor orientation to social determination; and promoted, moving from conventional to agentic…