Who's who in the crew? Exploring participant involvement in the Active Living Coalition

Priscilla A. Barnes, Samantha Schaefer, Susan Middlestadt and Heidi Knoblock

Evaluation and Program Planning, 2015, vol. 50, issue C, 88-95

Abstract: Health coalitions serve as an important “vehicle” to strengthen horizontal and vertical ties between organizations, community groups, and individuals whose intent and purpose is to improve wellness. Having a strong and diverse group of participants is essential for highly effective coalitions to carry out their mission in an organized and participatory manner. However, the extent that individuals become involved in coalition operations and activities remains ambiguous. A grounded theory approach was used to explore expressions of participant involvement of a local health coalition known as the Active Living Coalition (ALC). Open, axial, as well as domain and taxonomic coding were used to analyze transcripts from four focus groups (n=37 participants) in order to develop a participant continuum that captured six network aggregates within the coalition. Findings suggest that participation, for the most part, was heterogeneous and ever-changing given the expectations of the level of partnership that best individuals’ personal and professional interests. Differentiating the type of participants in health coalitions can help coalition leaders more successfully “manage” new and existing relationships. Findings imply that health coalitions can maximize coalition capacity by drawing upon the full range of potential human and material resources by further understanding the types of individuals that make up their network.

Keywords: Formative evaluation; Coalition; Participation; Participant involvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149718914001281
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:epplan:v:50:y:2015:i:c:p:88-95

DOI: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.11.006

Access Statistics for this article

Evaluation and Program Planning is currently edited by Jonathan A. Morell

More articles in Evaluation and Program Planning from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().