The Community Readiness Model: Evaluating Local Smoke-Free Policy Development

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review the literature on community readiness and assess the utility of the community readiness model (CRM) for understanding and affecting smoke-free policy development and implementation. The CRM evaluates a community's capacity for successfully developing and implementing prevention or treatment interventions. The purposes of evaluating a community's readiness are to: (a) identify the stage of readiness for policy change, and (b) determine stage-specific strategies to advance a community toward policy change.

A Controlled Community‐Based Trial to Promote Smoke‐Free Policy in Rural Communities

“…Communities that scored higher on overall readiness were more likely to enact comprehensive smoke‐free laws, and the percent covered by these policies exceeded that of those with lower readiness scores. These findings add to the literature supporting the applicability and validity of the CRM in predicting local policy change …”

“…These findings add to the literature supporting the applicability and validity of the CRM in predicting local policy change. 31,39,40,75 The primary limitation of this study was the sample size, given that the county was the unit of analysis. This concern is lessened since the study was powered a priori so that the ANCOVA F test would have approximately 80% power to detect a large effect size (such that the ratio of the standard deviation of the group means to the standard deviation of the observations within the populations was at least 0.5), given this sample size and an alpha level of .05.…”

Landlord Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Smoke‐Free Policies: Implications for Voluntary Policy Change

“…Unfortunately, nonsmoking tenants often fail to report concerns or problems to apartment managers and even find it difficult to ask their visitors to refrain from smoking, especially if there is inclement weather outside when the visitor desires to smoke (Escoffery, Kegler, & Butler, 2009). Thus, additional study is needed to assess tenant attitudes and readiness for change to help them gain a voice in promoting smokefree policies (York & Hahn, 2007).…”

Assessing Trauma-Informed Care Readiness in Behavioral Health: An Organizational Case Study

“…While other organizational change models exist (Lehman, Greener, & Simpson, 2002), this readiness model is a culturally sensitive and strengthbased tool (Jumper-Thurman, Edwards, Plested, & Oetting, 2003) that assesses a community's level of readiness and builds its capacity to successfully implement an initiative regardless of its current starting point. This model has been widely used both nationally and internationally for topics including: drug and alcohol prevention (Donnermeyer, Plested, Edwards, Oetting, & Littlethunder, 1997;Plested, Smitham, Jumper-Thurman, Oetting, & Edwards, 1999), cardiovascular disease (Peercy, Gray, Thurman, & Plested, 2010), intimate partner violence (Brackley et al, 2003;Han, 2003), smoking and tobacco use policy (York & Hahn, 2007), HIV/AIDS (Aboud, Huq, Larson, & Ottisova, 2010;McCoy, Malow, Edwards, Thurland, & Rosenberg, 2007;Plested, Edwards, & Thurman, 2007), breast cancer (Lawsin, Borrayo, Edwards, & Belloso, 2007), and head injury (Stallones, Gibbs-Long, Gabella, & Kakefuda, 2008). The model of community readiness provides a guided assessment and intervention process that leverages a community's strengths (e.g., culture, history, resources, level of problem awareness, readiness for change) to facilitate change (National Center for Community and Organizational Readiness, 2009;Plested, Jumper-Thurman, & Edwards, 2009).…”