RESUMO
Promoting use of farmers' markets (FMs) is a promising community-level strategy to increase access to nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Yet, FM shopping among people with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits remains low. This research examined predictors of FM shopping among SNAP recipients living within 1 mile of a FM. A cross-sectional survey of SNAP participants (N = 270) was conducted in 2015 in Cleveland and East Cleveland, OH, USA. Multinomial regression and zero-truncated Poisson regression analyses were conducted to examine factors associated with FM shopping. Results indicate 48% reported shopping at a FM at least once in the past year, 26% had shopped at a FM before, but not in the last year, and 26% had never shopped at a FM. The multivariable analyses found awareness of FMs and a healthy food incentive program, and four dimensions of healthy food access are significantly associated with FM shopping among SNAP recipients. The food access dimensions included service delivery, spatial-temporal, personal, and social access. Findings highlight modifiable leverage points for improving the reach of FMs among low-income populations.
Assuntos
Comércio , Redes Comunitárias , Assistência Alimentar , Abastecimento de Alimentos , Adolescente , Adulto , Estudos Transversais , Fazendeiros , Feminino , Frutas/provisão & distribuição , Promoção da Saúde , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Ohio , Pobreza , Inquéritos e Questionários , Verduras/provisão & distribuição , Adulto JovemRESUMO
This longitudinal research conceptualizes community coalitions as events in local intervention systems (Hawe et al. in Am J Commun Psychol 43(3-4):267-276, 2009). It explores the potential contribution coalitions make, through the collaborative activities of their members, to the broader intervention systems in which they are embedded. Using social network analysis, it examines patterns of structural change in a network of 99 organizations focused on youth violence prevention (YVP) over a 5-year period in which 30 of the 99 organizations were involved in a local YVP Coalition. Both longitudinal modeling and cross sectional analyses are used to examine change in system capacity-strong interorganizational networks-related to patterns of network density, centralization, and hierarchy. Somewhat surprisingly, the study found that capacity in the broader YVP Intervention System actually diminished during the 5-year period of the coalition's operation, though part of the system-the sub-network that made up the YVP Coalition-was marginally strengthened. In this case, therefore, the evidence suggests that power and relational resources in the broader YVP Intervention System were redistributed. The article explores how the definition of capacity related to density and hierarchy may be contextually dependent. Implications for the role of coalitions in building system capacity are discussed.
Assuntos
Relações Interinstitucionais , Violência/prevenção & controle , Adolescente , Fortalecimento Institucional/métodos , Estudos Transversais , Humanos , Estudos Longitudinais , Modelos Organizacionais , Desenvolvimento de Programas/métodos , Mudança Social , Apoio Social , Violência/psicologiaRESUMO
This longitudinal study identifies espoused change orientations and actual youth violence prevention (YVP) practices over five years by 99 public and nonprofit organizations in one city. Annual key informant interviews provided both qualitative and quantitative data, including organizational collaborative network data. Data were also obtained on participation in a citywide YVP coalition, juvenile arrests and court referrals. On average, organizations both in and outside the coalition adopted a problem-focused as often as a strengths-based change orientation, and were only marginally more oriented toward empowering community members than professionals and changing communities than individual youth. Most surprisingly, YVP coalition members adopted more of a tertiary (reactive/rehabilitative) than primary prevention orientation compared to nonmembers. The number of different YVP strategies implemented increased over five years from mainly positive youth development and education interventions to those strategies plus mentoring, youth activities, events and programs, and counseling youth. Network analysis reveals dense initial collaboration with no critical gatekeepers and coalition participants more central to the city-wide organizational network. Coalition participation and total network collaboration declined in Years 3-5. Youth violence arrests and court referrals also declined. The coalition was marginally involved in successful community-collaborative, school-based interventions and other strategies adopted, and it disbanded a year after federal funding ended. Despite, or possibly due to, both national and local government participation, the coalition missed opportunities to engage in collective advocacy for local YVP policy changes. Coalitions should help nonprofit and public organizations develop more effective change orientations and implement commensurate strategies at the community level.
RESUMO
Making changes to the way food is produced, distributed, and processed is one strategy for addressing global climate change. In this case study, we examine the "forming" stage of an emergent and locally-based coalition that is both participatory and focused on promoting food security by creating food systems change. Social network analysis is used to compare network density, centrality, and centralization among coalition partners before the formation of the coalition and at its one-year anniversary. Findings reveal that the coalition facilitated information seeking, assistance seeking, and collaborative efforts related to food security among a group of organizational stakeholders that were relatively disconnected pre-coalition. Results also illuminate tensions related to increased centralization of the network, coalition efficiency, and the goals of democratic decision-making. This study highlights the utility of social network analysis as a tool for evaluating the aims and trajectory of locally-based coalitions focused on global concerns.
Assuntos
Redes Comunitárias , Saúde Ambiental , Indústria Alimentícia/organização & administração , Mudança Climática , Coleta de Dados , Humanos , Estudos Retrospectivos , TennesseeRESUMO
Previous research indicates that communities can be engaged at various levels in research to reduce youth violence. In this paper, we argue that the method of power sharing among partners is a central factor distinguishing different levels of engagement. Using cases from the Nashville Urban Partnership Academic Center of Excellence, we identify community initiation and community collaboration as distinct approaches to community engaged violence prevention research. The power relationships among partners are analyzed to highlight differences in the types of engagement and to discuss implications for establishing and sustaining community partnerships. Also, the implications of levels of engagement for promoting the use of evidence-based practices are discussed.
Assuntos
Redes Comunitárias/organização & administração , Universidades/organização & administração , Violência/prevenção & controle , Adolescente , Pesquisa Participativa Baseada na Comunidade/métodos , Comportamento Cooperativo , Humanos , Delinquência Juvenil/prevenção & controle , Poder Psicológico , Desenvolvimento de Programas/métodos , Características de Residência , Instituições Acadêmicas/organização & administração , TennesseeRESUMO
This paper explores the role of member participation in decision-making (PDM) from an organizational learning (OL) perspective. Community-based organizations (CBOs) serve as mediators between the individual and the local community, often providing the means for community member participation and benefiting organizationally from members' input. Community psychologists have recognized these benefits; however, the field has paid less attention to the role participation plays in increasing CBOs' capacity to meet community needs. We present a framework for exploring how CBO contextual factors influence the use of participatory decision-making structures and practices, and how these affect OL. We then use the framework to examine PDM in qualitative case study analysis of four CBOs: a youth development organization, a faith-based social action coalition, a low-income neighborhood organization, and a large human service agency. We found that organizational form, energy, and culture each had a differential impact on participation in decision making within CBOs. We highlight how OL is constrained in CBOs and document how civic aims and voluntary membership enhanced participation and learning.
Assuntos
Redes Comunitárias , Participação da Comunidade , Tomada de Decisões Gerenciais , Organizações sem Fins Lucrativos , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Estados UnidosRESUMO
Community psychologists have long worked with community-based human service organizations to build participatory processes. These efforts largely aim at building participatory practices within the current individual-wellness paradigm of human services. To address collective wellness, human service organizations need to challenge their current paradigm, attend to the social justice needs of community, and engage community participation in a new way, and in doing so become more openly political. We use qualitative interviews, focus groups, organizational documents, and participant observation to present a comparative case study of two organizations involved in such a process through an action research project aimed at transforming the organizations' managerial and practice paradigm from one based on first-order, ameliorative change to one that promotes second-order, transformative change via strength-based approaches, primary prevention, empowerment and participation, and focuses on changing community conditions. Four participatory tensions or dialectics are discussed: passive versus active participation, partners versus clients, surplus powerlessness versus collective efficacy, and reflection/learning versus action/doing.
Assuntos
Serviços Comunitários de Saúde Mental/organização & administração , Política , Reforço por Recompensa , Humanos , Cultura OrganizacionalRESUMO
A key gap in existing food environment research is a more complex understanding of the interplay between physical and social contexts, including the influence of social networks on food habits. This mixed methods research examined the nature of social connections at food procurement places among a sample of 30 people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in an urban setting. Results highlight the significance of social connections as motivators to use food places, the value of access to information and other resources at food places, and the role of weak ties with actors within food places to facilitate utilization and interaction. Social connections at the varied places individuals procure food may be leveraged to disseminate information and resources to further healthy food access.
Assuntos
Assistência Alimentar , Abastecimento de Alimentos , Rede Social , Adulto , Comércio/estatística & dados numéricos , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , PobrezaRESUMO
Community coalitions are a recognized strategy for addressing pressing public health problems. Despite the promise of coalitions as an effective prevention strategy, results linking coalition efforts to positive community outcomes are mixed. To date, research has primarily focused on determining organizational attributes related to successful internal coalition functioning. The authors' research complements and adds to this literature by offering a network conceptualization of coalition formation in which coalition participation is studied within the broader context of local organizational networks both within and beyond a coalition. The authors examine participation in the first year of a youth violence prevention coalition exploring both differences between participating and nonparticipating organizations and levels of participation. Each network variable, reflecting prior collaboration and being viewed by other organizations as a local leader, approximately doubled the explained variance in coalition participation beyond the predictive power of all available organizational attributes combined. Results suggest that initial coalition participation emerged out of a preexisting network of interorganizational relations and provide an alternative perspective on coalition formation that goes beyond conceptual orientations that treat coalitions as bounded organizational entities that exist apart from the communities in which they are embedded.
Assuntos
Redes Comunitárias/organização & administração , Desenvolvimento de Programas , Violência/prevenção & controle , Adolescente , Humanos , Pesquisa Qualitativa , TennesseeRESUMO
Background. Antiobesity interventions have generally failed. Research now suggests that interventions must be informed by an understanding of the social environment. Objective. To examine if new social networks form between families participating in a group-level pediatric obesity prevention trial. Methods. Latino parent-preschool child dyads (N = 79) completed the 3-month trial. The intervention met weekly in consistent groups to practice healthy lifestyles. The control met monthly in inconsistent groups to learn about school readiness. UCINET and SIENA were used to examine network dynamics. Results. Children's mean age was 4.2 years (SD = 0.9), and 44% were overweight/obese (BMI ≥ 85th percentile). Parents were predominantly mothers (97%), with a mean age of 31.4 years (SD = 5.4), and 81% were overweight/obese (BMI ≥ 25). Over the study, a new social network evolved among participating families. Parents selectively formed friendship ties based on child BMI z-score, (t = 2.08; P < .05). This reveals the tendency for mothers to form new friendships with mothers whose children have similar body types. Discussion. Participating in a group-level intervention resulted in new social network formation. New ties were greatest with mothers who had children of similar body types. This finding might contribute to the known inability of parents to recognize child overweight.
RESUMO
Transformative organizational change requires organizational learning capacity, which we define in terms of (1) internal and (2) external organizational systems alignment, and promoting a culture of learning, including (3) an emphasis on exploration and information, (4) open communication, (5) staff empowerment, and (6) support for professional development. We shortened and adapted Watkins and Marsick's Dimensions of Learning Organizations Questionnaire into a new 16-item Organizational Learning Capacity Scale (OLCS) geared more toward nonprofit organizations. The OLCS and its subscales measuring each of the above 6 dimensions are unusually reliable for their brevity. ANOVAs for the OLCS and subscales clearly and consistently confirmed extensive participant observations and other qualitative data from four nonprofit human service organizations and one local human service funding organization.
Assuntos
Aprendizagem , Organizações sem Fins Lucrativos/organização & administração , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Cultura Organizacional , Inovação Organizacional , Inquéritos e Questionários , Estados Unidos , Adulto JovemRESUMO
BACKGROUND: School-community partnerships offer an opportunity to promote positive youth development. However, there is a need for community-based participatory research (CBPR) models that leverage community and school resources to create environments that support youths' success. OBJECTIVE: Describe the CBPR process used by Alignment Enhanced Services (AES) partners to develop and implement a strategy to promote a positive school climate, and to discuss factors that influence the AES process in the schools. METHODS: A committee of school and community members developed the AES process, which included an environmental scan that solicited input from internal and external stake-holders on the schools' assets and needs related to youth development and school climate. AES coordinators, in consultation with school administrators, developed and implemented action plans that leveraged each school's existing strengths, while identifying and utilizing new resources to address systemic and individual needs. LESSONS LEARNED: To date, the project has produced encouraging results; however, the AES process resulted in numerous challenges for the coordinators, schools, and community partners. CONCLUSION: AES offers a method for engaging the stakeholders in addressing critical issues related to youth development and school climate.
Assuntos
Desenvolvimento Infantil , Redes Comunitárias/organização & administração , Instituições Acadêmicas , Meio Social , Criança , Pesquisa Participativa Baseada na Comunidade , Coleta de Dados , Humanos , Desenvolvimento de Programas , Violência/prevenção & controleRESUMO
Public health literacy is an emerging concept necessary to understand and address the broad array of factors, such as climate change, globalization, and poverty, that influence the public's health. Whereas health literacy has traditionally been operationalized as an individual-level construct, public health literacy takes into account the complex social, ecologic, and systemic forces affecting health and well-being. However, public health literacy has not yet been fully articulated. This paper addresses this gap by outlining a broad, new definition of public health literacy. This definition was developed through an inductive analytic process conducted in 2007 by a multidisciplinary research team, and two expert-panel sessions were convened to assess the consensual validity of the emergent definition. Based on this process, public health literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals and groups can obtain, process, understand, evaluate, and act on information needed to make public health decisions that benefit the community. Three dimensions of public health literacy--conceptual foundations, critical skills, and civic orientation--and related competencies are also proposed. Public health literacy is distinct from individual-level health literacy, and together, the two types of literacy form a more comprehensive model of health literacy. A five-part agenda is offered for future research and action aimed at increasing levels of public health literacy.