Empowerment and effectiveness: a mixed methods study of coalition building within a statewide substance abuse prevention context

This study contributes to the literature by testing a conceptual model of the relationships between empowering organizational characteristics and individual empowerment and their impact on perceived effectiveness within coalitions implementing a substance abuse prevention framework. Excessive drinking among adolescents and young adults is a significant problem in the United States and contributes to a wide range of costly consequences, including motor vehicle crashes, suicide, interpersonal violence, and alcohol poisoning (SAMSHA, 2012). In addition to excessive drinking, an estimated 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older, (8.7 percent), reported current use of illicit drugs in 2011, with marijuana use on the rise and the current most commonly used illicit drug (SAMHSA, 2012). The U.S. Department of Justice (2011a) estimated the economic cost of illicit drug use to society for 2007 was more than $193 billion. The present study adopted a mixed methods convergent parallel design, (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011) which included analysis of secondary quantitative and qualitative data that were collected in 2011 for the evaluation of the adoption of the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) in New Jersey. Participants were drawn from a purposeful, non-random sample of staff and members within eleven New Jersey coalitions implementing the SPF (n = 138 survey participants; n = 20 interview participants). Using organizational and individual empowerment theories within the conceptual framework, the present study examined psychological empowerment and empowering organizational characteristics and their impacts on perceived effectiveness within coalitions. This study included descriptive, path, and qualitative analyses. The path model showed a good fit to the data with the hypothesized pathways. Psychological empowerment and sense of community had direct, positive effects on perceived effectiveness. Direct effects of organizational characteristics on perceived effectiveness were found as well as indirect effects through their relationships to sense of community and psychological empowerment. Previous research on individual empowerment and organizational empowerment has not included the relationship to self-reported effectiveness. Practical implications include developing coalition training on the SPF with emphasis on organizational characteristics that foster members’ empowerment, increase coalition effectiveness, and improve positive community impact.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Kristen Gilmore Powel