Core and peripheral organisations in prevention: Insights from social network analysis

Abstract

Issue: Formal (eg funded) community-level organisational collaborations are becoming more common in prevention. Rapid methods to assess organisational relationships could allow us to consider the significance of any pre-existing relationship patterns in communities that might impact on collaboration effectiveness. Insights may identify new options for practice. Methods:We used social network analysis to study organisations engaged in prevention but not (yet) part of a formal purposive collaboration. Within a single community, we identified organisations providing programs in chronic disease prevention. We used whole network analysis methods to describe the extent to which organisations were aware, had contact, coordinated activity and/or collaborated more intensively.We also identified the contribution made to prevention locally. Results were compared with key informant interviews. Results:There was an identifiable network structure, with more relationships across the network than one would expect by chance. The network had a core-periphery structure, meaning that, in terms of the relationships we measured, there were highly connected organisations who were strongly interlinked with each other (the core), alongside less connected organisations that were linked to the core but not to each other (the periphery). Core organisations were significantly more likely to have expertise in prevention and to have prevention staff. Conclusions:To our knowledge, it is new to identify inherent or "pre-existing" coreperiphery structures in interorganisational health promotion. Yet, core-periphery structures are common in many social settings. They advantage entities in the core and are prone to further entrenchment. So what?Our results map and quantify intuitive understandings about organisational "key players", thus enabling practitioners/organisations to critically reflect on what their role should be when it comes to activating communities ie to embed, or attempt to counterbalance, pre-existing power structures. K E Y W O R D S chronic disease prevention, interorganisational networks, capacity building | 493 HELD Et aL.

Understanding the Development, Evaluation, and Sustainability of Community Health Networks Using Social Network Analysis: A Scoping Review

“…These included size, number of connections, cohesion (level of participation, density, and centralization), function (information sharing or referrals), and integration. 16,17,22,58-90 Eight studies identified organizations central to the network and/or network brokers (organizations serving as a bridge between other organizations) and characterized how those organizations positively contribute to network development. Another 5 studies identified and characterized sub-networks which included smaller groups of organizations within the overall network.…”

Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

“…To complicate matters further, networks that encourage or support unhealthy behaviours may also provide positive benefits to network members such as social support, recognition, and status (Dolan, 2014;Flores et al, 2013;Lohan, 2007). A central focus of community development and capacity building, therefore, becomes the creation of relationships, where links are absent or otherwise not achieving community needs (Held et al, 2020). For these issues to be detected and managed, health workers need funding to be constantly 'on the ground'.…”

Identification of Network Promoters in a Regional and Intersectoral Health Promotion Network: A Qualitative Social Network Analysis in Southern Germany

“…Previous studies on intersectoral action have often concentrated on the factors that may influence cooperation in a network (e.g., organizational aspects or leadership) [3,7,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. Several studies have analyzed networks (formalized and non-formalized) with regard to their structure and statistical measurements, without pointing out the roles and influences of certain actors, like we did in this study [52][53][54][55]. Other studies have focused on the evaluation of community partnerships and corresponding health outcomes and impacts [46,56,57].…”