University-community partnership efforts to sustain a community-based physical activity program for 3rd-5th grade youth

Background: Sustainability of community-based health interventions born of university-community partnerships is a pertinent issue when community partners assume full program control. Purpose: Using one-time fiscal year funding, university researchers and their community partners implemented the evidence-based physical activity (PA) program “Scorecard” for 3rd-5th graders in a low-income, predominantly African American urban neighborhood for the purpose of monitoring program performance, as well as identifying elements that would foster community control after one year. Significance: Programs failing to identify sustaining elements have limited lifespan and diminish the perceived value of university-community engagement. Methods: Ongoing dialogue, planned drawback in university resources, identification of key persons and assets indigenous to the community, and careful monitoring of intervention performance were key sustainability activities. Results: Scorecard garnered support and attention from several local authorities and demonstrated promise in promoting youth PA. Scorecard became streamlined by targeting a centrally located elementary school as a program organizational base. Community partners generated a list of human and financial resources to assist short-term maintenance. Multiple area-specific and skill-specific program champions were identified. Conclusions: Modifications to Scorecard reduced operational costs and produced a logistically less demanding manageable intervention. Community change requires multiple people to champion it, expertise in program planning and development, nurturance of community networks, area-specific leadership skills, and time. Although up to five years may be required to institutionalize community-based programs, this process must be more efficient when one-time funding is available. Impassioned efforts notwithstanding, it may be unrealistic to assume that community partners want to sustain interventions indefinitely.