Community-based behavioral health interventions: Developing strong community partnerships

Quality of collaboration within health promotion partnerships: Impact on sense of community, empowerment, and perceived projects' outcomes

“…Working in partnerships is considered an essential condition to deliver more effective and sustainable health promotion interventions (Campbell & Murray, ; Murray et al, ; WHO, ). The advantages that are recognized to coalitions and partnership for health promotion include better management of resources, more effective delivery of services, increased operational and innovation capacities and community ownership and sustainability of the intervention (McNeish et al, ). More important, they represent a response to the complex and multifaceted problems that cannot be tackled by any individual organization working alone.…”

“…*The 95% Bayesian credible interval for the estimates exclude zero. CBHPP efficacy, perceived efficacy of the community-based health promotion project; SOC-R, sense of community responsibility; SOC-P, sense of community promoting health; QCP, quality of collaboration within the partnership effective delivery of services, increased operational and innovation capacities and community ownership and sustainability of the intervention (McNeish et al, 2019). More important, they represent a response to the complex and multifaceted problems that cannot be tackled by any individual organization working alone.…”

“…Most studies relied on qualitative evaluations of specific case studies (e.g., Eriksson, Fredriksson, Froding, Geidne, & Pettersson, ; Estacio et al, ) and did not consider the role that developing a sense of community may play, giving more attention to other processes, like leadership management and negotiation procedures (Stolp et al, ). Only few studies (McNeish et al, ; Powell & Peterson, ) have recently addressed the role of sense of community in perceived effectiveness of community coalitions, providing evidence that sense of community is a key process in enhancing the perception of coalition effectiveness. These studies supported some theoretical assumptions of the community health psychology perspective (Campbell & Murray, ; Hausman et al, ; Murray et al, ), based on which strengthening the quality of relationships among community members, citizens' empowerment and responsibility in addressing health problems and health‐related challenges are important conditions for improving the quality and sustainability of interventions and population health.…”

“…There is evidence that coalitions or partnership initiatives (the two terms are used interchangeably in this context) are effective in tackling the broader determinants of health and well‐being in a community, as well as in promoting health‐related behavior change (Gillies, ) and health outcomes (Butterfoss, ; McNeish, Rigg, Tran, & Hodges, ). Partnerships generally entail a multiplicity of interdependent agencies and organizations from different sectors (e.g., health services or hospitals, local government offices, civil society organizations, voluntary agencies, universities, educators, concerned communities, and citizens) that have a stake in the development of community health action.…”

“…Quality of communication is important for the optimal functioning of the partnership (Corbin et al, ). Open communication among members is associated with participation, satisfaction, positive relationships, effectiveness (Kegler, Norton, & Aronson, ), community ownership, as well as increased effectiveness, and sustainability of interventions (McNeish et al, ). Although it takes some time to nurture relationships, when facilitated effectively, collaborative work can enable more systemic ways of working towards health promotion and community development.…”