Lessons in promoting active living: the collaborative perspective.

CONTEXT: Collaborative groups are integral in health promotion and disease prevention and use an ecological approach to address complex health conditions in community settings. Little is known about collaborative efforts to promote active living. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this analysis is to explore successes and challenges of collaborative groups in promoting active living in their communities. DESIGN/SETTING: One-time, structured telephone interviews were conducted to assess the composition tactics and activities and approaches used by collaboratives to promote active living. PARTICIPANTS: Collaborative groups were referred by Physical Activity Policy Research Network members or found through online searches. Interviews were conducted with coordinators of 59 collaborative groups. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Analysis focused on successes and challenges of collaborative groups' policies, programs, and/or projects as described by collaborative group coordinators. We used the Grounded Theory method approach to code and abstract themes from 2 open-ended response sets. RESULTS: Collaboratives' most successful projects centered on strategies using environmental (41%) or policy (31%) approaches to promote active living. While 80% of groups reported that their most successful project was funded, funding was also identified as a primary challenge for 71% of the collaboratives. Personnel issues were a common challenge for 54%. Opposition to successful projects ranged from community issues to collaborative member issues, although more than half the groups experienced no opposition. CONCLUSIONS: Groups that aligned goals, strategies, and funding to advance changes to the built environment were likely to identify their projects as successful. Perceptions of opposition and attitudes toward success may be important precursors to project outcomes of active living collaboratives and warrant further investigation. Lessons from these active living collaborative groups can provide guidance for other groups planning for environmental and policy change.

Advancing environmental and policy change through active living collaboratives: compositional and stakeholder engagement correlates of group effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate compositional factors, including collaborative age and size, and community, policy, and political engagement activities that may influence collaboratives' effectiveness in advancing environmental improvements and policies for active living. DESIGN/PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Structured interviews were conducted with collaboratives' coordinators. Survey items included organizational composition, community, policy, and political engagement activities and reported environmental improvements and policy change. Descriptive statistics and multivariate models were used to investigate these relationships. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Environmental improvement and policy change scores reflecting level of collaborative effectiveness across 8 strategy areas (eg, parks and recreation, transit, streetscaping, and land redevelopment). RESULTS: Fifty-nine collaborative groups participated in the interview, representing 22 states. Groups have made progress in identifying areas for environmental improvements and in many instances have received funding to support these changes. Results from multivariate models indicate that engagement in media communication and advocacy was statistically correlated with higher levels of environmental improvement, after adjusting for age of group and area poverty levels (P < .01). Groups that frequently solicited endorsements from community leaders and offered testimony in policy or legal hearings reported significantly more policy change, after adjusting for age of group and area poverty levels (P < .01 for both). CONCLUSIONS: Active living collaboratives are translating the evidence on environmental and policy approaches to promote active living from research to practice. Investing in community and policy engagement activities may represent important levers for achieving structural and policy changes to the built environment.