PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY-BASED COALITIONS

描述(由申请人提供)： 以社区为基础的联盟是国家癌症研究所传播循证干预措施以减轻美国癌症负担的战略不可或缺的一部分，特别是在服务不足的地区。作为合作组织，联盟在整合成员机构、企业和普通公民的联合资源方面提供了巨大的希望，以文化和社区特定的方式促进可持续的健康促进。与此同时，成员国参与的自由裁量性构成了持续不断的脱离接触的威胁。因此，了解是什么支持了成员的参与，对于确保社区联盟参与癌症控制活动的持续能力至关重要。 这项研究将测试社区联盟中影响成员参与的因素的概念模型，并将审查参与如何导致具体的预防活动。研究人员将通过之前从阿巴拉契亚癌症网络内的癌症预防联盟收集的数据来推进这一议程。然后，他们将把关联的结构和模式与关注青少年行为问题的社区联盟样本中的结构和模式进行比较，其中许多青少年行为问题也会增加癌症风险。 其结果将是一个比以前的研究更具特异性和普遍性的模型。新的模型将使我们能够看到(1)如何衡量社区健康促进联盟中潜在的与参与相关的因素；(2)联盟层面的哪些属性影响个体成员的参与；以及(3)参与水平如何支持联盟层面的预防活动。本研究将为后续研究建立以社区为基础的健康促进联盟参与的中级理论奠定基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Community-based coalitions are integral to the National Cancer Institute's strategy for disseminating evidence-based interventions to reduce the burden of cancer in the United States, especially in underserved areas. As collaborative organizations, coalitions offer great promise in marshalling the combined resources of member agencies, businesses, and private citizens toward sustainable health promotion in culturally and community specific ways. At the same time, the discretionary nature of their members' participation poses the constant threat of disengagement. Thus, an understanding of what supports member participation is vital to ensuring the sustained capacity of community-based coalitions to engage in cancer control activities. This study will test a conceptual model of the factors affecting member participation in community-based coalitions and will examine how participation leads to specific prevention activities. The investigators will pursue this agenda through previously collected data from cancer-prevention coalitions within the Appalachia Cancer Network. They will then compare both constructs and patterns of association to those in a sample of Communities That Care coalitions focusing on adolescent behavior problems, many of which also increase cancer risks. The result will be a model that has greater specificity and generality than has been achieved in previous studies. The new model will enable us to see (1) how to measure factors potentially related to participation within community-based health promotion coalitions; (2) what coalition-level attributes affect individual members' participation; and (3) how participation levels support prevention activities at the coalition level. This study will lay the groundwork for subsequent research establishing a mid-range theory of community-based health promotion coalition participation.