Using the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory to Strengthen Collaborations for Improving Maternal and Child Health

Abstract

Introduction The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory is a free, publicly available questionnaire about the quality and context of community collaboration. The purpose of this article is to share lessons from using this questionnaire in a North Carolina maternal and child health initiative. Methods In 2015, the State’s General Assembly funded five local health departments to implement evidence-based strategies for improving maternal and child health. Each health department formed a community action team for this purpose. Members of each community action team completed the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory (Inventory) in the first year of funding and again 1 and 2 years later. Technical assistance coaches also asked community action team conveners to complete a brief questionnaire annually, and used these as well as Inventory results to plan for improvements. Results During the first year, community action teams emerged as strong in seeing collaboration in their self-interest. A primary challenge noted by conveners was engaging consumers on the community action teams. Strategies to address this included using social media and compensating consumers for attending meetings. By the second year, teams’ average scores in engaging multiple layers of participation increased, and eight additional factors became strengths, which generally continued in year three. The most consistent challenge was supporting community action teams administratively. Discussion The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory provided a feasible tool for identifying opportunities for improvement in several local, cross-sector partnerships, suggesting promise for other communities seeking to enhance their collective impact on maternal and child health.

Community Engagement in Co-designing an Innovative Health Equity Program: A Case Report

“…Number of items per factor ranged from 1 to 3. Highest and lowest scores are highlighted (similar to a recent study by Wells et al, 2021).…”

A novel Vision Zero leadership training model to support collaboration and strategic action planning

“…Additional work to support strategies around financing and resource acquisition will be an important next step for future trainings. Finally, in addition to using these collaboration and cooperation measures to support identification of targeted areas for larger team trainings, prior research has demonstrated the utility of coalition or teamspecific collaboration assessments, as depicted in this paper (Figures 4,5), for regular appraisal of areas requiring targeted team discussion and action (Ziff et al, 2010;Perrault et al, 2011;McCullough et al, 2017;Wells et al, 2021).…”

“…Similarly, measures were assessed via web-based surveys; however, collaboration measures were only assessed prior to the Institute and 6 months post-Institute, as no change was expected in the short-term (i.e., over the few days of the Institute). We adapted measures from three tools to develop the assessment: the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory (Mattessich et al, 2001;Ziff et al, 2010;McCullough et al, 2017;Wells et al, 2021), the Organizational Climate Measure Tool (Patterson et al, 2004;Patterson et al, 2005;Nordgård, 2011;Schneider et al, 2013), and the Council Assessment Tool (Calancie et al, 2017;Calancie et al, 2018a;Calancie et al, 2018b).…”

“…The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory has been used extensively in prior research and practice to measure and guide coalition coordination and collaboration efforts (Mattessich et al, 2001;Ziff et al, 2010;McCullough et al, 2017;Wells et al, 2021). We used the third (and most recent) edition of the Inventory, which includes 44 items that measure 22 factors.…”

“…Future work, including not only following an unexposed comparison group but also assessing different types or components of supports for Vision Zero teams, could help determine the most effective models for supporting Vision Zero and Safe Systems efforts within multidisciplinary groups. Second, we did not have measures of validity and reliability on the survey items used for this specific population; however, the tools from which we derived measures have been used extensively in other populations and have had good psychometric properties (Mattessich et al, 2001;Patterson et al, 2004;Patterson et al, 2005;Ziff et al, 2010;Nordgård, 2011;Schneider et al, 2013;Calancie et al, 2017;McCullough et al, 2017;Calancie et al, 2018a;Calancie et al, 2018b;Wells et al, 2021). Third, response rates for the 6month post-Institute survey were low.…”