Community readiness assessment for disseminating evidence-based physical activity programs to older adults in Changsha, China: a case for Enhance®Fitness

Evaluating Community Capability to Prevent and Control COVID-19 Pandemic in Shenyang, China: An Empirical Study Based on a Modified Framework of Community Readiness Model

Community plays a crucial role in the successful prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. However, evaluation of community capability to fight against COVID-19 is rarely reported. The present study provides a first attempt to assess community capability to combat COVID-19 in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province in Northeast China, based on a modified framework of a community readiness model. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ninety key informants from fifteen randomly selected urban communities to collect the data. The empirical results indicate that the overall level of community capability for epidemic prevention and control in Shenyang was at the stage of preparation. The specific levels of the fifteen communities ranged from the stages of preplanning to preparation to initiation. Concerning the level of each dimension, community knowledge about the issue, leadership, and community attachment exhibited significant disparities between communities, while there were slight differences among communities on community efforts, community knowledge of efforts, and community resources. In addition, leadership demonstrated the highest overall level among all the six dimensions, followed by community attachment and community knowledge of efforts. Community resources displayed the lowest level, followed by community efforts. This study not only extends the application of the modified community readiness model to evaluate community capability of epidemic prevention in the Chinese community context, but also offers practical implications for enhancing Chinese communities' capabilities to deal with various future public health emergencies.

Efficacy of Government-Sponsored Community Health Programs for Older Adults: A Systematic Review of Published Evaluation Studies

Objective: Population aging is an ongoing challenge for global health policy and is expected to have an increasing impact on developing economies in years to come. A variety of community health programs have been developed to deliver health services to older adults, and evaluating these programs is crucial to improving service delivery and avoiding barriers to implementation. This systematic review examines published evaluation research relating to public and community health programs aimed at older adults throughout the world.

Methods: A literature search using standardized criteria yielded 58 published articles evaluating 46 specific programs in 14 countries.

Results: Service models involving sponsorship of comprehensive facilities providing centralized access to multiple types of health services were generally evaluated the most positively, with care coordination programs appearing to have generally more modest success, and educational programs having limited effectiveness. Lack of sufficient funding was a commonly-cited barrier to successful program implementations.

Conclusion: It is important to include program evaluation as a component of future community and public health interventions aimed at aging populations to better understand how to improve these programs.

Evaluation of community readiness for change prior to a participatory physical activity intervention in Germany

A lack of communities' readiness for change is reported as a major barrier toward an effective implementation of health promoting interventions in community settings. Adding an alternative readiness assessment approach to existing research practice, this study aimed to investigate how a selected community could be evaluated in-depth regarding its readiness for change based on multiple key informant perspectives, with the intention of using this knowledge for the preparation of improved local physical activity (PA) interventions for men above 50 years of age. We conducted semi-structured face-to-face key informant interviews with stakeholders and relevant persons from a local German community (N = 15). The interview guide was based on a comprehensive summary of community readiness dimensions. After verbatim transcription, we conducted thematic analysis to synthesize the complex results regarding community readiness related to PA. The data supported that the community disposed of a variety of resources regarding PA and showed signs of readiness for change. However, a certain degree of saturation regarding PA programs existed. The need for health enhancing PA interventions for men was only partly recognized. The local authority considered PA to be particularly important in the context of mobility and traffic safety. Including multiple stakeholders contributed to a balanced and in-depth assessment of community readiness and was helpful for determining starting points for tailored PA interventions due to the detection of complex relationships and structures. The study delivers preliminary evidence that a qualitative multi-perspective community readiness assessment adds value to quantified single-perspective readiness assessment research practice.

How many key informants are enough? Analysing the validity of the community readiness assessment

Objective

Communities are important settings for health promotion and prevention. The community readiness assessment offers a structured approach to assess resources and opportunities to tackle a health problem within a community. The assessment relies on semi-structured interviews with key informants from the communities. A number of 4–6 key informant interviews are recommended in the literature. However, it is unclear whether this is sufficient to obtain a valid representation of the respective community. This study analysed whether increasing the number of key informants from 4–6 to 12–15 alters the results of the community readiness assessment.

Results

A total of 55 community readiness interviews were carried out in 4 communities. Overall, the community readiness scores showed little variation after having interviewed 10 key informants in a community. However, even after completing 10 interviews in a community, key informants were still able to identify up to 6 new information items regarding community efforts for physical activity promotion among the elderly, contact and communication channel for informing or approaching the target group, or barriers to participation.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-021-05497-9.