Policy-contribution assessment and field-building analysis of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research Program.

Background: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation requested this utilization-focused evaluation of its Active Living Research (ALR) program. This evaluation reports on the trajectory of influence of past and future ALR outcomes on field-building and policy contributions as well as on possible users of completed and disseminated ALR products.

Methods: In 2006 and 2007, key-informant interviews were conducted with 136 representatives of first-line potential users of ALR research products, including state physical activity and nutrition program coordinators, policymakers, scientists, and funders.

A qualitative exploration of alternative strategies for building community health partnerships: collaboration- versus issue-oriented approaches.

Broad-based community partnerships are seen as an effective way of addressing many community health issues, but the partnership approach has had relatively limited success in producing measurable improvements in long-term health outcomes. One potential reason, among many, for this lack of success is a mismatch between the goals of the partnership and its structure/membership. This article reports on an exploratory empirical analysis relating the structure of partnerships to the types of issues they address.

The California wellness foundation's Health Improvement Initiative: evaluation findings and lessons learned.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of the Health Improvement Initiative (HII), a 5-year grantmaking initiative funded by The California Wellness Foundation designed to identify the critical factors needed to bring about population health improvements through community-level systems change.

Design: The evaluation of the HII used a case-study, logic-model approach to make inferences about the effect of each community coalition (Health Partnership) on its target community. The primary outcome measure was the creation of significant and sustainable community-level systems change.

Evaluating the California Wellness Foundation's Health Improvement Initiative: a logic model approach.

The difficulties of conducting randomized trials to evaluate community-based initiatives have led some researchers to argue in favor of a case study "logic model" approach to evaluation. This article describes a case study logic approach adopted for the evaluation of one community initiative, the Health Improvement Initiative (HII) funded by the California Wellness Foundation (TCWF). The HII is a comprehensive, community-based initiative designed to improve population health by implementing and sustaining community-level systems changes.