Project ASSIST coalitions in North Carolina

Community health promotion relies heavily on coalitions to address a multitude of public health issues. In spite of their widespread use, there have been very few studies of coalitions at various stages of coalition development. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that facilitated or impeded coalition effectiveness in the implementation stage of coalition develop-ment The research design was a multiple case study with cross-case comparisons. Each of the 10 local North Carolina Project ASSIST coalitions constituted a case. Data collection included: semi-structured interviews, observa-tion, document review, and surveys of members and staff. Some of the major factors that facilitated implementation included: the ability of the coalition to provide its own vision, staff with the skills and time to work with the coalition, frequent and productive communica-tion, cohesion or a sense of belonging on the coalition, and complexity of the coalition struc-ture during the intervention phase. Barriers to effective implementation included: staff turn-over and staff lacking community organization skills, dependence on the state-level staf