Defining the Community

In September 2000, a team of five students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health was assigned to work in Warren County. As part of the curriculum of the Health Behavior Health Education Department (HBHE) at UNC, the students conducted an Action Oriented Community Diagnosis (AOCD). An AOCD is a process by which students collect secondary data about a community and conduct interviews with people who live and work in the community. After analyzing this information, the team presented the community's strengths and weaknesses to the residents. This presentation allowed community members to formulate action steps to address the self-identified issues. In Warren County, the team worked with two preceptors: Mary Marrow, Health Educator and Tom Milroy, Regional Consultant for Health Education. Milroy, a 1972 HBHE alumnus, works for the state office of Health Education and Healthy Carolinians. Marrow works for the Warren County Health Department. The two were working together to complete the county community diagnosis required by the state. The two preceptors hoped that the AOCD team would use the information already collected to complete the document for the state.

The team spent approximately five hours on two windshield tours that covered most of the county. By the second windshield tour, the team had determined that a smaller geographic area would lend itself to the AOCD process better than the entire county. Therefore, the team decided to choose a town within the county.

Marrow expressed her support for the team's efforts, regardless of which area the team chose. While people living in Warren County can easily name a dozen or more communities, maps show only three incorporated towns (Norlina, Warrenton, and Macon). Even on the windshield tours, the team saw and heard about other communities, including Soul City, Lake Gaston and Hollister. The team chose Warrenton partly because it is the county seat. Most of the resources the team needed for collecting secondary data are located there, as are most of the service providers in the county. The health department, where the team's preceptor works, is also located in Warrenton. Therefore, everything the team needed would be within reach in Warrenton. With a population close to 1000 people, the team thought Warrenton was a manageable size to work with.

The team quickly realized that secondary data was more plentiful at the county level, but lack of secondary data does not make a community any less real. During the interview process, it became apparent that most services are provided at a county level, and that many of the service providers could not cleanly separate the town from the county. As one service provider put it, "Anybody that has easy access to Warrenton proper would be in the community." Community members were more inclined to refer to smaller communities within the county, but because of Warrenton's history as the county seat, its development seemed closely related to that of the county as a whole. Accordingly, none of the themes that emerged from the AOCD process was related to Warrenton in isolation from Warren County. Another interviewee stated, "When I talk about Warrenton, so much of the conversation has to tie in the county stuff too."

The Warren County team conducted an Action Oriented Community Diagnosis in Warrenton, North Carolina. Because, in general, themes from both service providers and residents were issues that the town government could not address and were likely to be shared by people from the rest of the county, the planning committee encouraged the team to bring the findings back to the county level. Thus, after beginning with Warren County and focusing on the town of Warrenton, the team ended the AOCD by attempting to spur countywide action.

Executive Summary

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