Dose as a Tool for Planning and Implementing Community-Based Health Strategies.

A major challenge in community-based health promotion is implementing strategies that could realistically improve health at the population level. Population dose methodology was developed to help understand the combined impact of multiple strategies on population-level health behaviors. This paper describes one potential use of dose: as a tool for working collaboratively with communities to increase impact when planning and implementing community-level initiatives. Findings are presented from interviews conducted with 11 coordinators who used dose for planning and implementing local efforts with community coalitions. During early-stage planning, dose was used as a tool for strategic planning, and as a framework to build consensus among coalition partners. During implementation, a dose lens was used to revise strategies to increase their reach (the number of people exposed to the intervention) or strength (the relative change in behavior for each exposed person) to create population-level impact. A case study is presented, illustrating how some community coalitions and evaluators currently integrate dose into the planning and implementation of place-based healthy eating and active living strategies. Finally, a planning checklist was developed for program coordinators and evaluators. SUPPLEMENT INFORMATION: This article is part of a supplement entitled Building Thriving Communities Through Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives, which is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Community Health.

Using Population Dose to Evaluate Community-level Health Initiatives.

Successful community-level health initiatives require implementing an effective portfolio of strategies and understanding their impact on population health. These factors are complicated by the heterogeneity of overlapping multicomponent strategies and availability of population-level data that align with the initiatives. To address these complexities, the population dose methodology was developed for planning and evaluating multicomponent community initiatives. Building on the population dose methodology previously developed, this paper operationalizes dose estimates of one initiative targeting youth physical activity as part of the Kaiser Permanente Community Health Initiative, a multicomponent community-level obesity prevention initiative. The technical details needed to operationalize the population dose method are explained, and the use of population dose as an interim proxy for population-level survey data is introduced. The alignment of the estimated impact from strategy-level data analysis using the dose methodology and the data from the population-level survey suggest that dose is useful for conducting real-time evaluation of multiple heterogeneous strategies, and as a viable proxy for existing population-level surveys when robust strategy-level evaluation data are collected. SUPPLEMENT INFORMATION: This article is part of a supplement entitled Building Thriving Communities Through Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives, which is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Community Health.

Increase in Physical Activity Sustained 1 Year After Playground Intervention.

INTRODUCTION: Regular physical activity is a vital component of child health, and schools play an important role in the promotion of physical activity among children. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a playground redesign involving structural and loose play equipment to increase students' physical activity at an intermediate school in Leadville, Colorado. METHODS: Direct observations were conducted during recess before the redesign in May 2014, then again at 6 months and 1 year after the redesign. During each observation, observers scanned the playground and counted how many students were sedentary, engaged in moderate activity, or engaged in vigorous activity. System for Observing Play and Leisure Activity in Youth, a validated instrument for observing physical activity in free play settings, was used to collect observation data. RESULTS: Six months from baseline, the percentage of children engaging in moderate to vigorous physical activity during recess increased by 23.3%, and the percentage engaged in vigorous physical activity increased by 26.2%. These increases were sustained at 1 year from baseline, with an increase of 17.2% for moderate to vigorous physical activity and 33.1% for vigorous physical activity. Chi-square tests of independence showed that changes in the proportion of students engaging in moderate to vigorous physical activity and vigorous physical activity were statistically significant (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: This evaluation demonstrated that environmental interventions involving the provision of structural and loose play equipment can be implemented in an intermediate school setting, and can create a sustainable increase in physical activity among students during recess. This example also demonstrates that schools and community organizations can evaluate the impact of these interventions using relatively simple, low-cost observational methods. SUPPLEMENT INFORMATION: This article is part of a supplement entitled Building Thriving Communities Through Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives, which is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Community Health.