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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Alice J Hausman, PhD, MPH, Department of Health Studies, Temple University, PO Box 2843, 304 Vivacqua Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122, 2152045112, ahausman@nimbus.temple.edu, Rickie Brawer, MPH, Jefferson Health Systems, 130 South Bryn Mawr Ave., Clothier Building, Byrn Mawr, PA 19010, Barbara Terry, The Institute for Healthy Communities, 4750 Lindle Road, Harrisburg, PA 17111-2428, Robin Wilcox, MPA, MCP-Hahnemann University, Mail Stop 660, 245 North 15th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, Robin Foster-Drain, MD, MPH, To Our Children's Future With Health, 1914 North 63rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19151, and Julie A. Becker, PhD, MPH, Center for Public Health, Temple University, 2534 Swain Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130.
Increasingly, public health practice is turning to the application of community collaborative models to improve population health status. Despite the growth of these activities, however, evaluations of the national demonstrations have indicated that community health partnerships fail to achieve measurable results and struggle to maintain integrity required for sustaining efforts. While community partnerships are difficult to evaluate, traditional evaluation methods may not be addressing outcomes most relevant to how partnerships work and may fail to provide information needed by different partners to make decisions about their continued involvement. This paper presents the results of a qualitative case study designed to identify indicators of success for a specific community partnership and to test the feasibility of an evaluation tool more suitable for collaborative efforts. Using principles of social capital, the research demonstrates that through the discovery and communication of what is valued by participating collaborative members, evaluations can address both internal information needs for sustainability and produce assessment of effects on health outcomes. The "value" indicators generated by the evaluation tool are presented, as is a description of the process by which they were negotiated. Feedback from the pilot-test participants on the feasibility and value of the process is also presented. By discovering outcome measures that suit both participants and policy makers, community partnerships may move toward greater accountability and hence sustainability.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Community Participation, Evaluation
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.