Effectiveness and Challenges of Regional Community Health Planning Partnerships in Nebraska

Funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this study intends to examine the effectiveness and challenges of regional community health planning partnerships. Partnerships serve an important resource to regional local health departments (RLHDs) when assessing community needs and developing community health plans. In 2009, we conducted a mail survey to gather community partners' perceptions about the effectiveness of their partnerships in 2 Nebraska RLHD jurisdictions. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with a subset of partners who completed the mailed survey. We received 52 completed surveys (out of 62) for a total response rate of 83.9% and interviewed 21 community partners.

Community partners rated their partnerships highest in efficiency of the partnership and lowest in effectiveness of the partnership's administration and management. The results on partnership synergy scores indicated that the community partnerships in both regions would fall under the “work zone”, meaning more effort is needed to maximize the partnership's collaborative potential. However, the partnership in the region with a prior history of collaborative activity (i.e., turning point partnership) had a higher synergy score than its counterpart in the other region (3.86 compared to 3.41 on a 5-point scale, p<0.05). In both regions, partners viewed their partnership as a great support in assessing and prioritizing their community needs and saw the LHD instrumental in developing and maintaining their partnership. Most partners identified geographic distance and work demand as major challenges. Strategies used to address these challenges included holding meetings in a centralized location and using information technology tools.