PSE change initiatives involve a wide variety of people, agencies and organizations from all corners of the community, working toward a common goal. As with other public health initiatives, partnerships are vital to any PSE change process. They make it possible to divide the work so it can be completed more efficiently. Working with diverse partners also strengthens your efforts by capitalizing on each member’s strengths and reaching each member’s constituencies.

Build partnerships with community stakeholders and engage partners who might be affected by the broad issue identified. Ensure that the partnerships include stakeholders who can effectively work with your team to plan, implement, and evaluate evidence-based cancer control PSE change interventions.

Data can play an important role in building partnerships. The following tips may be helpful as you consider how to best use data to engage community partners in your PSE change effort.

• Conduct a community asset mapping exercise to identify individual and organizational assets in your community to help you identify partners.
• Identify potential partners from public, private, non-profit and other sectors. This could include community-based business associations, faith-based institutions, small business owners, policy councils and community action agencies.
• Use data from reliable sources as evidence to support your position and gain buy-in from partners around the health issue you want to address. Sharing evidence can strengthen partnerships because it creates a common understanding of the issue, which will empower and motivate partners to take action toward PSE change.