Development of an academic/corporate/community-based partnership to improve the evaluation capacity of the HIV prevention public health workforce in the South: A tri-directional collaborative model

The sustainability of the HIV prevention public health workforce is challenged by limited evaluation capacity and increasing demands for evidence-based programs. This issue is attenuated in the southern region, which experienced a 20% increase in the estimated number of new AIDS cases compared to a 7.1% increase in the United States between 2000 and 2004. The Pfizer Foundation Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative (Initiative) facilitated a tri-directional partnership with The Morehouse School of Medicine Prevention Research Center and 24 small and mid-sized community-based organizations in response these challenges. Partners collaborated to identify, prioritize and respond to the emerging evaluation capacity needs of public health programs through an approach that centered on empowerment of programs to develop practical evaluation skills to assess public health prevention programs over the course of the 3-year Initiative (2004-2006). Critical evaluation capacity building partnership processes included cooperative decision-making in response to qualitative and quantitative data, systematic communication strategies, the navigation of and response to the unique needs of each collaborative partner. This presentation will describe the reciprocal learning experienced through the strengths and opportunities contributed by each member of the 3-partner collaborative and will outline the resources needed to collectively implement evaluation capacity building to improve the public health work force among community-based organizations in the South. Emerging best practices and recommendations for academic partners supporting evaluation capacity building for the HIV prevention public health workforce will also be discussed.