Obstacles to and future goals of ten comprehensive community health promotion projects

Abstract

Over 100 project staff, community coalition members, and other representatives from 10 comprehensive community health promotion projects in the western United States were surveyed two years into a three year funding cycle about: (1) the problems or obstacles they judged as preventing successful completion of their current goals and objectives, and (2) future goals and objectives they envisioned for their projects. The key issues confronting respondents were diverse, although issues around the process of implementing community health promotion programs were cited more frequently than issues related to the content of health promotion. When respondents were asked to prioritize Future Goals in the second survey, consensus across communities was obtained despite broad differences in the type of community surveyed and the health problem targeted. This study identifies the common organizational and community development problems faced by newly emerging community health promotion programs and has implications for other communities involved in designing, implementing, and evaluating community-wide health promotion programs.

A Review of Collaborative Partnerships as a Strategy for Improving Community Health

“…These include presumptions about existing levels of staff or community capacity and inappropriate or insufficient support (1,33,42,97,119). For example, a community that is presumed to lack the capacity to implement a partnership may be denied funding (and access to technical support).…”

“…Initial excitement about a new community health initiative may generate ? a flurry of interest and participation, but support may diminish over time (1,87). Furthermore, in the absence of appropriate intermediate markers for more distant population-level health outcomes, those providing funding support may invest in (or divest from) a partnership regardless of progress.…”

“…This review builds on previous summaries and critical assessments of the literature on collaborative partnerships for community health improvement (1,9,10,15,71,78,79,83). After an overview, we focus on four central questions: (a) What is the evidence that collaborative partnerships change behavior and improve health outcomes at a population level?…”

Methodologic Advances and Ongoing Challenges in Designing Community-Based Health Promotion Programs

“…The last question is very important, as funding agencies increasingly view their resources as seed money to support intervention while a community builds an infrastructure to continue such activities after the external funding ends (4,25,34,135). Similarly, there is a belief that communities that have been involved in addressing a public health problem will have both the wish and enhanced capacity to continue activities at some level (4,5,54,74,78,135,152).…”

“…Community partners who perceive beneficial results from a project in which they have participated often wish to have the means for project durability (5,22,23,82). Unfortunately, many research organizations have simply removed themselves after the research phase of the project has ended, leaving the community partners without resources, capabilities, or other avenues to address the original problem.…”