Supporting community-based prevention and health promotion initiatives: developing effective technical assistance systems.
As research evidence for the effectiveness of community-based prevention has mounted, so has recognition of the gap between research and community practice. As a result, state and local governments are taking a more active role in building the capacity of community-based organizations to deliver evidence-based prevention interventions. Innovations are taking place in the establishment of technical assistance or support systems to influence the prevention and health education activities of community-based organizations. Several challenges for technical assistance systems are described: (1) setting prevention priorities and allocating limited technical assistance resources, (2) balancing capacity-building versus program dissemination efforts, (3) collaborating across categorical problem areas, (4) designing technical assistance initiatives with enough "dose strength" to have an effect, (5) balancing fidelity versus adaptation in program implementation, (6) building organizational cultures that support innovation, and (7) building local evaluative capacity versus generalizable evaluation findings.
Mitchell
Roger E
RE
Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh 27695-7801, USA. roger_mitchell@ncsu.edu
Florin
Paul
P
Stevenson
John F
JF
D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006290:Health Planning Technical Assistance; D006292:Health Priorities; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011322:Primary Prevention; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation