Community-academia partnerships to promote nutrition in the Lower Mississippi Delta: community members' perceptions of effectiveness, barriers, and factors related to success

Authors: NDIRANGU, MURUGI - UNIV OF SO MISSISSIPPI; YADRICK, KATHLEEN - UNIV OF SO MISSISSIPPI; Bogle, Margaret; GRAHAM-KRESGE, SUSAN - UNIV OF SO MISSISSIPPI

Submitted to: Journal of Health Promotion Practice
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/15/2007
Publication Date: 7/1/2008
Citation: Ndirangu, M., Yadrick, K., Bogle, M.L., Graham-Kresge, S. 2008. Community-academia partnerships to promote nutrition in the Lower Mississippi Delta: Community members' perceptions of effectiveness, barriers, and factors related to success. Journal of Health Promotion Practice. 9(3):237-245.

Interpretive Summary: ARS, university partners, and community members are addressing nutrition and health problems in three rural communities in the Lower Mississippi Delta through nutrition intervention research that employs a community-based participatory approach. This approach builds on the strengths of all collaborators to design programs that benefit from the wisdom and experience of all involved, rather than using the traditional approach in which academic partners are in control of the research process. This study evaluated community committee members' perceptions of the effectiveness of this process in the three Delta communities, at a point after intervention planning took place but before implementation of interventions. Community committee members identified the accomplishments of the community-academia partnerships as the formation and maintenance of active committees; positive changes in health behavior related to food choices among committee members; and participation in community events and activities in their communities. The barriers they saw were the slow pace of intervention implementation, difficulties with understanding the role of the community in the participatory research process, the decision-making processes, and project name recognition in the communities. Conducting ongoing evaluation from the perspective of the community helped the partnerships to build on identified strengths as well as to address barriers that could impede future success. Other community-academia partnerships can profit from the experience of and lessons learned by these collaborations.

Technical Abstract: Community members from a Lower Mississippi Delta community and university representatives used the Comprehensive Participatory Planning and Evaluation (CPPE) model to identify and prioritize three nutrition and physical activity problems in their community. These were intake of unhealthy foods, lack of nutrition education, and lack of adequate physical activity. Community members and university partners developed causal models to further break down these problems. They also identified factors related to these problems. Finally the participants developed a menu of interventions, as well as criteria by which to rank the interventions. The menu of interventions consisted of ten objectives to address poor nutrition in this community and a total of 27 interventions to meet the objectives.