How to do (or not to do)… asset mapping in community health

Public health asset mapping involves working in a community partnership to form a systematic inventory of a local community’s health-promoting features. Assets include physical amenities such as parks or fitness centers, community clinics, welfare agencies, health-promoting non-governmental organizations, and businesses. A curated list of these resources constitutes an asset map that can be shared to promote better health and better health policies that build on local strengths rather than deficits to address upstream social determinants of health. Procedures for asset mapping must be adapted for local contexts because the identity and focus of assets differ significantly between countries. Asset mapping emerged as an element of an overall approach to asset-based community development (ABCD). However, an expository gap persists between a rich asset-based community development literature and practice-oriented guidance on how to operationalize these processes through coherent asset map design, data collection, analysis, and integration of qualitative insights, especially for the metropolitan context in the public health field. In response, we developed a systematic and replicable five-step guide to systematically map public health assets. Our approach integrates desk research with qualitative insights and produces a structured, evidence-based process for identifying and classifying super-connectors, thereby providing a robust foundation for subsequent knowledge-exchange and implementation. Public health practitioners, researchers, and community leaders can use this guide to identify and mobilize community assets towards co-creating better health policy and better policy implementation.