Abstract
Reducing injuries (e.g. falls) among seniors requires an expanded public health effort to work with stakeholders at multiple levels. To achieve this goal, local public health professionals need to effectively bring together, facilitate, and support community partners to initiate evidence based efforts. However, to date, there has been no formal review of the literature to inform how these professionals can best work together with community partners to address injury prevention among seniors. Thus, this scoping review aims to identify theories, models or frameworks that are applicable to community-based injury prevention initiatives. Six databases (i.e., OVID, PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Proquest, EBSCO) as well as the grey literature and hand searches were used to identify relevant literature published in the English language, between 2000 and 2016, within a North American context. The search strategy included those items (1) identifying a theory, framework or model related to mobilizing partners; and (2) referring to community-based injury prevention. After reviewing 13,756 abstracts, ten items were included. Findings show that a theory, and various conceptual models or frameworks exist for developing and sustaining partnerships, however, few evaluations are reported, explicit involvement of local public health practitioners is rare and applications to senior community-based injury prevention programs are undocumented. Successful injury prevention initiatives for seniors will require filling these gaps, and translating and evaluating how theories, models and frameworks are applicable to local public health professional practices. Additional models may be needed to specifically guide how public health can work locally with community partners.