Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #114405

Judith A. Belfiori, MA, MPH¹, Linda D. Mack Burch, MPH², Jennifer Rienks, PhD(c)³, Geraldine Oliva, MD, MPH⁴, Virginia Smyly, MPH, CHES⁵, and Sandra Johnson, BS⁵. (1) Family Health Outcomes Project, Dept of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, (415)502-3247, belfiorij@fcm.ucsf.edu, (2) Family Health Outcomes Project, Depart. of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, (3) Family Health Outcomes Project, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, (4) Family Health Outcomes Project, Dept. of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California St, Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, (5) San Francisco Department of Public Health, Community Health Promotion & Prevention, 30 Van Ness Ave, Suite 2300, San Francisco, CA 94102

SevenPrinciples (7Ps) is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Working together with community-based organizations (CBOs), its goal is to eliminate the disparity between San Francisco's African-American and White infant mortality and to improve the health of African American infants, their families and communities. One of the project's innovative interventions is the funding of Community Action Teams (CATS) to, through the collective action of members, address the community-identified issues contributing to the poor health of African-Americans. Among the issues addressed by the CATS during Year 4 of the project are "Undoing Racism" and "Brothers Against Guns". The University of California, San Francisco Family Health Outcomes Project (FHOP) is the evaluator of the 7Ps project. As a result of the Year 2-3 evaluation, changes were made in Year 4 to increase the scope and impact of CATS and to create synergy between project interventions. Examples of changes made are increased CBO leadership, focused recruitment of community members, and linking the activities of the CATS to other project activities. As part of the ongoing participative evaluation, FHOP is using interviews of CAT members, project support staff and other stakeholders in the CATS' results; meeting/training evaluations; and case study observations to evaluate the CATS. This presentation will show how qualitative evaluation results are used to plan, improve and document the process and outcomes of this innovative, community-based approach to reducing health disparities, so that success may be replicated and lessons shared.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

1)Discuss the challenges of evaluating innovative community-based programs
• Describe the use of qualitative information to improve the program interventions and document the process leading to and the achievement of CATS/Project outcomes, and
• Assess how to apply qualitative "meaningful" evaluation to their own innovative projects.

Keywords: Evaluation, Challenges and Opportunities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.