Assessing Community Readiness for Prevention

Community readiness as a multidimensional construct

“…Within the community psychology literature, some place importance on interviewing key leaders McMillan et al, 1995;Oetting et al, 1995), whereas others place importance on surveying community residents (Beebe, Harrison, Sharma, & Hedger, 2001). Key leaders have been theorized as the most appropriate sample for several reasons.…”

“…This construct brings together the emphasis of strong collaborative leadership skills within the organizational literature with the importance of leadership support within community psychology. Within the community psychology literature, the concept of leadership in terms of readiness focuses on the presence or absence of a leader for the specific change effort (Oetting et al, 1995). We draw on the organizational psychology literature, then, to build on this concept to describe not only the presence or absence of a leader, but also leadership quality.…”

A Community Prevention Intervention to Reduce Youth from Inhaling and Ingesting Harmful Legal Products

“…Community Readiness concerns the extent to which a community can effectively respond to substance abuse problems-like youths' use of harmful legal products-and act to reduce these problems (Edwards, Jumper-Thurman, Plested, Oetting, & Swanson, 2000;Oetting et al, 1995). Rules and Regulations refers to restrictions on the availability of legal abusable products in homes, retail stores, and schools (Edwards & Holder, 2000;Johnson, 1996;Massachusetts Inhalant Abuse Task Force, 2005).…”

“…The assessment focuses on readiness to combat youths' use of harmful legal products that include inhaling and ingesting these products (Oetting et al, 1995). Nine stages of community readiness have been identified: 1) no awareness; 2) denial/ resistance; 3) vague awareness; 4) preplanning; 5) preparation; 6) initiation; 7) stabilization; 8) confirmation/expansion; and 9) high level of community ownership (Plested, Edwards, Jumper-Thurman, 2005).…”

Assessing the Role of Faith-Based Organizations in Health Promotion

“…The CRM, principally geared towards substance abuse, has been employed to assess "health and nutritional (such as STD, heart disease, and diet), environmental (such as water and air quality, litter, and recycling) and other social issues (such as poverty, homelessness, and violence)" (Thurman, Vernon, & Plested, 2007, p. 50).Various studies have cited the CRM as an effective resource for evaluating community readiness amongst diverse audiences (Ehlers, Huberty, Beseler, 2013;Millar et al, 2013;DeMarco et al, 2011;Sliwa et al, 2011;Findholt, 2007;Lawsin et al, 2006;Slater et al, 2005;Scherer et al, 2001;Plested et al, 1999;Oetting et al, 1995). Explicitly, Silwa et al (2011) used the CRM to synchronize health promotion techniques with public demand in an adolescent weight management study.…”