Community-based approaches are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve global health and close disparity gaps across places and populations. Yet, despite the evidence in science and conviction in policy that health should be promoted through community agency and action, community health has been under-conceptualized, under-appreciated, and under-funded – leading to an under-realization of impacts. Oregon State University Assistant Professor and Stema Research Director Laura E. R. Peters will share ongoing participatory action research on Community Positive Health, highlighting engaged partnerships with low-resource and marginalized communities in Kenya and Zambia on strengthening health as a transdisciplinary process. She will discuss both action-research findings and design, showing how it is embedded in a decentralized translocal network for learning and action for community and planetary health spanning five continents. The presentation will invite participants to explore how we can harness health diplomacy to shift from a paradigm of “health for all” to one of “health with all."

Professor Laura Peters is an assistant professor of geography researching how deeply divided societies build knowledge about, cope with, and act upon contemporary social-environmental changes and challenges, including those related to climate change, disasters, and health.