Determinants and facilitators of community coalition diffusion of prevention efforts

Abstract

This study examines how individual characteristics and network features of coalition participation in an intervention predict coalition members’ diffusion of Knowledge and Engagement in childhood obesity prevention. The study involved six communities in the U.S. measured across two to five time points from 2018 to 2021. Each community participated in the Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion theory-informed intervention, a three-phase intervention that employs group model building and technical assistance with convened stakeholders to build Knowledge, Engagement, and utilize research evidence in community-led, childhood obesity prevention actions. Findings indicate that key individual-level characteristics (e.g., years of experience, gender, eigenvector centrality) and network-level features (e.g., hierarchy, clustering) are associated with higher increases in intervention outcomes of Knowledge and Engagement in childhood obesity prevention. We attend to issues of perceived influence and power in community coalitions, finding that younger, less experienced women who are not well connected to other well-connected coalition members experience smaller increases in intervention outcomes. Our discussion focuses on how individual- and network-level characteristics are associated with coalition support for evidence-based practice adoption and implementation.