Project AquiLa: Community-engaged Planning to Explore the Relationship between Culture and Health

Background: Elements of charrette planning were employed to develop and examine the relationship between transnationalism, culture and health. Objective: This paper describes the partnership, the first two stages of the planning charrette and lessons learned. Methods: During charrette planning phase 1 we collected data through social network interviews (n = 58), cultural conversations (n = 88), and photovoice (n = 9). In the second phase we performed five charrette planning meetings. Data were synthesized by the planning team. Lessons Learned: The issue centered focus facilitated trust among partners. The holistic, iterative process to planning and interpreting preliminary data provided a deeper under- standing of the issues under investigation. Community partners at the table held us accountable to the communities we were studying and infused an undercurrent of social justice in our work.Conclusions: There are advantages in employing a com- munity engaged transdisciplinary team-based approach to the study of transnationalism, culture and health.