KU News Release

National psychological association honors KU expert on community development

Jerry A. Schultz

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas expert in community development and public health is the 2007 recipient of the Distinguished Contribution to Practice in Community Psychology award, given by the American Psychological Association’s Division of Community Psychology.

Jerry A. Schultz, associate director of KU’s Work Group for Community Health and Development at the Life Span Institute, was recognized for his work on translating knowledge to practice and research into how community groups can successfully address public health and community development issues.

Schultz, an anthropologist and community psychologist, is the co-developer of the Internet-based Community Tool Box. The Web site has more than 7,000 pages of exhaustive, step-by-step information on how local communities can tackle complicated social problems such as substance abuse, violence, teenage pregnancy and disease prevention.

Schultz is definitely of the “teach a man to fish” school, according to Community Tool Box co-developer Steve Fawcett, Kansas Health Foundation Distinguished Professor of Applied Behavioral Science. “In his heart, Dr. Schultz believes in the potential of communities to create conditions worthy of their people. He sees the Community Tool Box as a way to connect people around the world to each other and to practical tools to built healthier communities.”

The Community Tool Box is being used by grassroots groups and public health and prevention professionals around the globe. The site gets more than 3,000 visits every day, about 23 percent from outside the United States, and the six-month total of visitors doubled from 2005 to 2006.

Schultz is leading the effort to translate and adapt the Community Tool Box for use in Spanish- and Arabic-speaking countries to support such projects as a substance abuse prevention network in Spain, the European Union and Latin America.

Back in Kansas, Schultz directs the online documentation of substance abuse prevention efforts and analyzes the contributions of coalitions in 105 Kansas counties. He also leads an evaluation of the Kansas City Chronic Disease Coalition to reduce disparities in health outcomes associated with race and ethnicity and oversees the evaluation of the STEPS to a Healthier U.S.-Austin project that works to prevent diabetes, obesity and asthma.

Schultz received his doctorate in medical and cultural anthropology from KU in 1992 and holds faculty appointments as a courtesy professor in the departments of anthropology, applied behavioral science and preventative medicine and public health.

The Work Group for Community Health and Development was designated as a World Health Organization collaborating center in 2006. The Work Group is one of the 12 centers of the Life Span Institute that investigates human development from its genetic origins through the final stages of life. The institute also includes in its purview disability and public policy, public health and community development and aging.

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