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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Judith Belfiori, MPH, MA¹, Jennifer Rienks, PhD¹, Frederick Tatum, MHA¹, Geraldine Oliva, MD, MPH¹, and Virginia Smyly, MPH². (1) Family Health Outcomes Project, Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, 415-476-5283, BelfioriJ@fcm.ucsf.edu, (2) Health Promotion and Prevention, Department of Public Health, 101 Grove Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

The goal of SevenPrinciples (7Ps), a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, is to eliminate the disparity between San Francisco's African-American and White infant mortality rates and to improve the health of African American infants, their families and communities. One of the project's interventions is funding Community Action Teams (CATS) to address community-identified issues contributing to the poor health of African-Americans. The health department contracts with community-based organizations to form adult or youth teams. These teams, using a community action model, aim to complete a community action and to increase member connectedness to their team/community, capacity to participate in/lead community change and belief in working together to make changes. The University of California, San Francisco Family Health Outcomes Project (FHOP) is the evaluator of the project. Recognizing that quantitative evaluation methods are inadequate for evaluating and learning from community change strategies, the evaluation of this intervention includes qualitative methods (pre/post CAT member and coordinator interviews, meeting/training evaluations, review of reports, and case study observations) as well as quantitative methods (pre/post written surveys, process measures). This presentation will describe the evaluation methods used, present the key evaluation findings, discuss methodological challenges (e.g., interpreting case study findings) and make recommendations for future evaluations of community change interventions. Based on the experience gained during this evaluation, the presentation will include potential measures for evaluating the process and impact of interventions attempting community change through capacity building and group action.

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

• Discuss the challenges of evaluating innovative community action interventions,
• Describe the methods (qualitative and quantitative) used to evaluate the SevenPrinciples Community Action Teams,
• Understand the advantages and potential contributions of qualitative evaluation techniques and
• Describe and consider potential measures for evaluating community capacity building/community change interventions.

Keywords: Evaluation, Challenges and Opportunities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No