Utilizing the THRIVE Model
Utilizing the THRIVE Model
Submitted by: Andrea Hoff
OCAM Coach
Oftentimes, when people think about trauma, they think about a single person who has undergone some hardship: a soldier coming back from war or a woman who was physically attacked. It is not often the case that we consider the types of traumas that occur across entire communities, which can include everything from a community that has survived a natural disaster or even the chronic trauma of extreme generational poverty. When entire communities experience trauma, the effects are widespread. To appropriately respond to traumas, communities must first understand what they can do to improve the health and safety of their communities while also promoting health equity. The Tool for Health & Resilience in Vulnerable Environment – or THRIVE model – does just that.
Both a framework and a tool, the THRIVE model can assist prevention professionals in increasing community level health equity at a local, state, and national level. This model was born through a partnership between Prevention Institute and the National Network of Public Health in 2002 in a time where little research was available on how community level trauma influences an individual’s overall health and wellbeing. Through extensive research, the THRIVE model links medical conditions to community resilience factors showcasing how building upon community resilience can lead to better health and safety outcomes.
This “place-based” model is highly localized to a specific community to engage residents, community leaders, public health practitioners, and multiple other sectors in action-oriented change. Through a community resilience lens, THRIVE assesses and improves upon community determinants to promote the fair and just distributions of opportunities and resources and facilitates increased health and safety.
Structural drivers such as the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources determine health and safety outcomes in part by shaping the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. This framework highlights the relationship structural drivers have on community determinants of health such as social networks and trust, transportation, housing, education, living wages, and so much more.
When we use THRIVE as a tool, communities learn to identify strengths and assets, prioritize concerns, and develop an action plan to improve community determinants and enhance health, safety, and equity. Communities will also critically evaluate elements and structures that impact health and safety. This evidence-informed, practice-based framework supports communities through building on their strengths, reflects the values and cultures of the people who live there, and facilitates links to decision-makers and other resources.
