P38 - Obesity-Related Health Statistics Correlate More Strongly to Coalition Network Indices than Typical Effectiveness Evaluations

Abstract

Background (Background, Rationale, Prior Research, and/or Theory): Community health coalitions (CHCs) aim to improve local food/physical activity environments. Traditional CHCs evalutions measure perceived effectiveness, failing to quantify network structures or health outcomes. Thus, we applied a mixed-methods evalution; triangulating the Coalition Self-Assessment Survey (CSAS), social network analysis (SNA), and obesity-related county-level health statistics (ObCLHS). Objective: To improve CHCs evalution by exploring relationships between network structures, perceived effectiveness, and obesity-related social-behavioral factors. Study Design, Setting, Participants, Intervention: We administered CSAS and SNA in eight rural CHCs during summer 2017 and accessed the latest available (2015-16) ObCLHS. We conducted factor analysis on CSAS responses and compared ObCLHS, SNA, and CSAS factors using Pearson's correlations. Outcome Measures and Analysis: ObCLHS included adult BMI (aBMI), daily sugar-sweetened soda intake (Soda), daily sugar-sweetened beverage intake excluding soda (SSB), no physical activity in 30 days (noPA), and food insecurity (FoodIns). We conducted SNA on CHCs partnership, trust, and communication networks using the following indices: density (number of actual connections/all possible), eigenvector centralization (presence of a network broker), mean indegree (average number of connections members hold), indegree centralization (whether there is a central person). CSAS factors loaded on leadership, operating norms, actionable outcomes, personal problems for participation (PPP), and lack of common goals (LCG). Results: ObCLHS correlations to SNA: FoodIns negatively correlated to partnership, trust, and communication network density; Soda, aBMI, and noPA positively correlated to partnership, trust, and communication network indegree centralization; SSB and FoodIns negatively correlated to partnership, trust, and communication network mean indegree. ObCLHS correlations to CSAS: Soda negatively correlated to PPP; FoodIns positively correlated to leadership and negatively correlated to LCG. Conclusions and Implications: To assess CHCs impact on health, evalution should include SNA. ObCLHS were more strongly correlated (greater number of and consistently higher correlations) to SNA indices of CHCs than typical effectiveness evalution surveys. We are pursuing statewide evalutions, longitudinally, to clarify trajectories and validate this model for effective and sustainable CHCs. Funding: None.