Oregon Tobacco Prevention and Education Program Community Readiness Assessment: Informing tobacco prevention with an understanding of the community context

Background: Public health programs often follow work plans and are evaluated without empirical knowledge of the community-level impact on the community and program success. The Community Readiness Model (Tri-Ethnic Center, 2014) provides theoretical grounding and methods for assessing the community’s opinions on and preparedness to address a public health issue. Understanding community readiness provides information about the context and environment of public health programs and interventions that may guide future work in the community, as well as inform evaluation.

Methods: The Oregon Public Health Division Tobacco Prevention and Education Program (TPEP) contracted with NPC Research to assess the community readiness to reduce and prevent tobacco use in each of the 34 local public health departments across the state. Up to five key stakeholders in each county were interviewed, and interviews were coded. Community Readiness scores were determined on the county and state level.

Results: Findings were disseminated to administrators and staff in the local public health departments, with recommendations for next steps based on the county-level findings. Materials were tailored for use by TPEP staff and local public health departments. Findings were used to frame evaluation results on local programs’ challenges and successes, as well as for framing county work plans.

Discussion: The Oregon TPEP Community Readiness Assessment provided county-level and state information on the community context of tobacco prevention. While the assessment included some challenges and limitations, the findings may aid in choosing and planning appropriate tobacco interventions and in the evaluation of their successes.