HEALth MAPPS™ is a SNAP-Ed facilitated, community-engaged, socio-environmental determinants of health (SDOH) discovery and learning intervention. HEALth MAPPS™ mobilizes community partners - sectors, organizations, and residents to assess people's (i.e., SNAP-Ed audiences') lived experience of place-based resources, and to plan implement PSE intervention strategies that increase and to ease local access to environmental resources for healthy eating and physical activity (HEAL). HEALth MAPPS™ engages people in participatory action research (PAR) to accomplish two objectives: (1) document community/neighborhood environmental assets, the SDOH that residents experience as helping or hindering their behaviors and patterns; (2) assess neighborhood/community resources and readiness to take action. Community partners use local data to plan and implement PSE strategies to support and sustain healthy lifestyle behaviors among priority youth and adult populations. The MAPPS™ method integrates participatory photography and community mapping using global positioning system (GPS) technology, and residents' voiced perceptions of their community's socio-environmental determinants to explore, understand, and improve the culture and context for HEAL equity.
Intervention Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time
SNAP-Ed Strategies: PSE Change
HEALth MAPPS™ targets adult/head of family household residents and community sectors and organizational partners serving SNAP-eligible audiences in geographically defined rural community or urban/suburban neighborhood places with a high concentration of low SES populations. The potential reach includes SNAP-eligible adult audiences and family households and sector/organizational partners serving SNAP audiences in rural communities or urban/suburban neighborhoods served by adopting Extension organizations to date in OR, WA, ID, NV, CO, NM, OH, and SD, including tribal communities in OR, WA, and SD.
Setting: Community-wide
Age/Population Group: Adults, Older Adults, Pregnant/Breastfeeding, Parents/Caregivers, Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School
Race: All
Ethnicity: All
HEALth MAPPS™ is a compilation of evidence-based engagement and mixed methods evaluation tools aggregated into a community-engaged participatory evaluation and PSE intervention to change the environmental context and increase population exposure to SDOH HEAL resources. The intervention was developed to use participatory photo mapping (PPM; Dennis Jr. et al., 2009) and community readiness concepts (Sliwa et al., 2011) to document people's lived experiences of conditions in the place they live, grow, and age. Specifically, HEALth MAPPS™ accomplishes two audience-engaged objectives: (1) document observable PSE features, SDOH that support or hinder community members' HEAL behavioral patterns, and (2) determine local resources and readiness to protect health, promote health equity, and prevent obesity-related chronic disease among residents.
HEALth MAPPS™ utilizes a train-the-trainer protocol. The initial training (12-hour) facilitates the development of competencies and provides materials for the adopting organization to engage local community audiences in participatory assessment and PSE strategy implementation. Onsite, online, and hybrid trainings are provided by Oregon State University HEALth MAPPS™ trainers as workshops contracted by organizational adopters (typically land-grand university Extensions and/or SNAP-Ed agencies) that purchase the intervention and evaluation tool for state-wide implementation: the onsite 3-day workshop cost is estimated @ $15,000 plus trainer travel reimbursement; HEALth MAPPS™ Toolkit, included in workshop costs, are published by Oregon State University and available for download and printing (1 required per training participant).
- John DH et al. Engaging rural residents in mapping attributes using participatory photographic surveys (MAPPS™) to explain community resources and readiness to address the obesogenic environment, Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action); 2017;11(2):183-196. doi: 10.1353/cpr.2017.0023.
- Published manuscript: John & Gunter. engAGE in Community: Using Mixed Methods to Mobilize Older People to Elucidate the Age-Friendly Attributes of Urban and Rural Places. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 2015, DOI: 10.1177/0733464814566679.
- Published abstracts: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2014; (46)4, Supplement,S193); Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2015; (47)4, Supplement,S97
- Published evaluation reports: Jensen et al. (2019). Journal of Extension, 57(5), #5FEA1; Lindsay et al. (2019). Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 34(2), Article 4.
- Case studies by practitioners working in the field (Dodge Vera T, John DH. Using HEAL MAPPS to build community capacity among Latinos. Published abstract presented at Oregon Public Health Association annual conference; Corvallis, OR; October 2013) demonstrating positive effects on neighborhood school food/physical activity PSE.
Evidence Base: Research-tested
Based on the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework, the following outcome indicators can be used to evaluate intervention progress and success.
| Readiness and Capacity - Short Term (ST) | Changes - Medium Term (MT) | Effectiveness and Maintenance - Long Term (LT) | Population Results (R) | |
| Individual | ||||
| Environmental Settings | ST5, ST6, ST7 | MT6 | LT5, LT6, LT7, LT8, LT9, LT10, LT11 | |
| Sectors of Influence | ST8 | MT7, MT8, MT9, MT10, MT11 |
HEALth MAPPS™ integrates intervention with evaluation and can be used as a repeated measure on a 3 year cycle to evaluate change over time.
Website: OSU Extension provides HEALth MAPPS™ information, Toolkit Manual preview and process, available at: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/heal-mapps. Intervention materials are not freely available.
Contact Person:
Deborah H. John, Program Director
Professor and Extension Specialist for Health Equity and Place
College of Health, Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
Email: deborah.john@oregonstate.edu
Phone: (541) 737-1405
*Updated as of August 29, 2023