This compendium was created in preparation for the Civic Engagement and Population Health Initiative, a joint project of the University of California, Riverside and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. 

It is by now widely recognized that population health is shaped, not only by clinical care, but also by community conditions such as affordable housing, quality education, or living wage jobs, and even more broadly by structural factors like poverty and discrimination, and policy-related factors like immigrant integration and exclusion. This shift in our understanding has been based on a deep body of empirical research, quantitative and qualitative, built on theoretical and conceptual frameworks developed over the last several decades.

This initiative aims to improve research and understanding of the range of civic engagement measures and their connections to community conditions and population health by:

1. Developing a compendium of key concepts, measures, and datasets related to civic engagement, broadly and comprehensively defined, at the individual and group level and across varied geographic scales;
2. Exploring the extent to which civic engagement measures associate with measures of community health, particularly at the county level; 
3. Identifying specific knowledge/evidence gaps on the adequacy of voter registration and turnout data as proxy measures for more robust indicators of civic engagement at the county level.

The initiative recently released the Civic Engagement and Population Health Compendium. The compendium is a concise collection of research and materials on civic engagement and population health including: key concepts, measures, and datasets related to civic engagement, broadly and comprehensively defined, at the individual and group level and across varied geographic scales.

Download Compendium Here

Support for this initiative is provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

Members of the Team

Advisory Board Members

Ludovic Blain, Director, Color of Democracy

Renee Branch Canady, CEO, Michigan Public Health Institute

Vivian Chang, Grants Director, Sandler Foundation

Vedette Gavin, Conservation Law Foundation

Helena Hansen, Associate Professor, Psychiatry, NYU

Christopher Nelson, Senior Political Scientist; Professor of Public Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School, RAND

Adam Reich, Assistant Professor, Columbia

Wilnelia Rivera, President, Rivera Consulting, Inc.

Joel Rogers, Professor of Law, Political Science, Public Affairs and Sociology; Director, COWS, University of Wisconsin

Nathaniel Smith, Founder and Chief Equity Officer, Partnership for Southern Equity

Veronica Terriquez, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

Nik Theodore, Professor and Department Head, Director, Center for Urban Economic Development, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, UIC Chicago