Community coalitions are prominent mechanisms for building local capacities to address health and social concerns. Although there are case studies and descriptive reports on coalitions, there is little empirical information about coalition process and outcome. This paper describes a case study using a methodology for monitoring and evaluating community health coalitions. Data are fed back to coalition leaders and members, funding agents, and other relevant audiences as part of the development process. The monitoring system provides data on eight key measures of coalition process and outcome: the number of members, planning products, financial resources generated, dollars obtained, volunteers recruited, services provided, community actions and community changes. Illustrative data are presented for two different community health coalitions. Finally, challenges and opportunities in evaluating community coalitions are discussed.

Mutual‐aid groups provide a context in which people who share similar problems, conditions, or concerns give and receive support. Members of two different peer‐led mutual‐aid groups participated in this study: one for low‐income women and the other for people with multiple sclerosis. This study describes use of a self‐help behavioral assessment instrument to observe supportive transactions directly in actual group meetings. In a quasi‐experiment, we analyzed the effects of leader training on supportive transactions between members. Results suggest that leader training was effective in increasing the percent of disclosures about personal concerns followed by support behaviors for the low‐income women's group, although the effects did not hold for the multiple sclerosis group. This study contributes to understanding about actual behavior in mutual‐aid groups and ways in which collaborative consultation with mutual‐aid groups can enhance the provision of support.

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