Working to Effectively Meet the Health Needs of North West Arkansas' Uninsured: The Case of a Community-Academic Partnership

Background: St. Francis Clinic of Siloam Springs is a community-based organization (CBO) providing free health care services to uninsured and medically underserved population in Northwest Arkansas. The CBO services address Arkansas' high prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and chronic illnesses. A community-academic partnership between St. Francis Clinic and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, funded by Johnson & Johnson's Community Health Care Program, is increasing the CBO's capacity to evaluate program effectiveness.

Methods: The partners worked collaboratively in designing the project evaluation, desired outcomes, conceptual framework, data collection instruments/analysis, and presentation. CBO staff were trained in using EpiInfo. The methods emphasize a hands-on, participatory approach. Partners developed compatible goals and timelines ensuring a clear commitment to the project and feasible implementation.

Results: During the collaboration, CBO staff learned: use of the conceptual framework for program evaluation, data management, basic statistical analysis and interpretation of the results to measure program effectiveness. The academic partner gained an understanding of special monitoring and evaluation needs of CBO programs. The CBO's capacity to conduct program evaluation increased through the partnership and utilization of evaluation skills.

Conclusions: CBO-Academic partnerships provide valuable opportunities to increase sustainable in-house capacity for program monitoring and evaluation. Collaborative partnering is a mutual learning process: academic partners gain hands-on experience while the CBOs achieve built-in capacity for long term sustainability. This specific partnership also provided increased understanding of key determinates essential for the reduction of cardiovascular disease.