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以证据为基础的干预措施的战略的组成部分，以减少美国的癌症负担，特别是在服务不足的地区。作为协作组织，联盟提供了很大的希望，在编组成员机构，企业和公民个人的综合资源对可持续的健康促进文化和社区的具体方式。与此同时，其成员参与的自由裁量性质不断构成脱离接触的威胁。因此，了解支持成员参与的因素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。 这项研究将检验影响成员参与社区联盟的因素的概念模型，并将审查参与如何导致具体的预防活动。研究人员将通过以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实现这一议程。然后，他们将比较结构和关联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，其中许多也会增加癌症风险。 其结果将是一个模型，具有更大的特异性和普遍性比以往的研究中取得的。新的模式将使我们能够看到（1）如何衡量潜在的参与因素，以社区为基础的健康促进联盟;（2）联盟一级的属性影响个人成员的参与;（3）参与水平如何支持预防活动在联盟一级。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程理论奠定基础。

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.