title: Development of scales measuring the capacity of community-based initiatives.
abstract: This article describes the development of two measures for the capacity of local public health initiatives. Data obtained from a qualitative study of eight community-based initiatives served as the basis for the development of a survey instrument. It was administered to a national sample of both leaders and nonleaders of 291 such initiatives. Because survey results for leaders and nonleaders differed, results could not be combined into a single data set for analysis. Results for each data set were analyzed by employing exploratory principal components and factor analyses. A 44-item, six-factor scale resulted for leaders and a 38-item, five-factor scale resulted for nonleaders. The high degree of overlap (22 items) between the two scales resulted in a combined 60-item instrument that can be administered to both leaders and nonleaders but analyzed separately.
authors.affiliation: Center for Evaluation and Research, Nemours Health and Preventive Services, Newark, Delaware, USA.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lempa
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Goodman
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.forename: Adam B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Becker
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D003142:Communication; D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration; D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods*; D006266:Health Education / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D015980:Public Health Practice; D036301:Qualitative Research; D015203:Reproducibility of Results