State and Local Collaboration for Coordinated Chronic Disease Prevention: A Qualitative Analysis

In 2011, the Kentucky Department for Public Health was funded by CDC for a Coordinated Chronic Disease Prevention project.  The principle objective of the project was to develop, with broad state-wide participation of stakeholders, a comprehensive plan to address key chronic diseases and unhealthy behaviors. The plan was to include a strong emphasis on policy measures including environmental change, health systems interventions and community-clinical linkages, made possible by coalitions and stakeholder advocacy. A secondary objective of the project was to improve the efficiency with which public health leaders in state government use their time and resources, in partnership with collaborators at the local level.  This project reports on an effort to understand the nature and extent of collaboration between state categorical program coordinators and teams with their community partners.  Qualitative data were gathered through structured interviews with 11 categorical program coordinators in the Kentucky Department for Public Health. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for coding of themes, in order to identify perceived benefits and barriers of this collaboration, and to infer lessons for the future, to make this prevention work increasingly effective and efficient.  The presentation will outline the frequency and type of interaction among the state coordinators, as well as with local health departments and other partner organizations at the local level.  There will be a thorough review of the perceived benefits and barriers to collaboration, followed by recommendations for program managers.  To the extent that many other state public health departments are organized in similar ways, data findings are generalizable to other jurisdictions.