A Community Capacity Building Framework for Developing, Implementing, Measuring and Sustaining a Community-Academic Partnership for Health and Wellness

 

PRESENTATION TYPE: Individual Poster

CATEGORY/THEME: Dissemination and Implementation Science

TITLE: A Community Capacity Building Framework for Developing, Implementing, Measuring and Sustaining a Community-Academic Partnership for Health and Wellness

Introduction: A key element of a community-academic partnership’s success is the emphasis on capacity building as a valuable mechanism for community-based health promotion programs. Therefore, it is important to have a community capacity building framework that attempts to synthesize current thinking and practice for developing, implementing, measuring and sustaining health promotion efforts. A community capacity framework that applied community capacity building and community-based participatory research concepts to a walking intervention involving a collaboration among a public university, local city government, community based organizations and community members was designed and implemented to help lower blood pressure in a majority African-American population in southern Mississippi.

Methods: Capacity building efforts began with focus group sessions termed “community conversations” to help develop and tailor the intervention. A community advisory board (CAB) engaged in a collaborative workshop process to define constructs for assessing community capacity and to develop a community capacity action plan. Several capacity building efforts and activities, including training walking coaches, were conducted during the implementation phase. Then a multi-step mixed methods approach (qualitative and quantitative) was used to assess how project stakeholders (researchers and staff; CAB, intervention walking coaches, and walking participants) perceived the community capacity building efforts.  More focus group sessions termed “listening sessions” were conducted to develop the sustainability efforts. During a 12-month maintenance period following the intervention, participants were trained as fitness instructors, community health advisors and congregational health advisors to help sustain the health promotion efforts and the community-academic partnership.

Results: The adopted framework included the constructs leadership, resources, external networking, visibility, ability and commitment to organizing action, personnel sustainability, communication with community members, and relationship with influential others. Action items were implemented under each capacity dimension; leadership, for example, included identifying community role models for physical activity and training volunteers to lead walking groups. Community and congregational health advisors developed community action plans, organized, and carried out community health conferences. Trained fitness instructors led and continue to lead community exercise groups.

Conclusions: Overall findings provide a culturally tailored framework that gives guidance in community capacity building efforts related to improving intervention outcomes and increasing sustainability for community-academic partnerships.