Location and organizational features: what type of veteran communities participate in health programs?

Background: Research shows that community-based membership organizations are effective partners in health promotion activities; however, most community organizations do not participate in such partnerships. There is little research regarding the geographical and organizational characteristics associated with participation.

Objective: We examined the factors associated with community-based veterans service organization (VSO) units' decision to participate in a health promotion project.

Methods: We collected location and organizational characteristics regarding 218 VSO units asked to participate in POWER, a partnership to improve hypertension self-management skills between the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and Wisconsin branches of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Vietnam Veterans of America, and National Association of Black Veterans. We tested the association of these characteristics with participation using chi-square and Fisher's exact tests for categorical variables, and analysis of variance and the Kruskal-Wallis test for continuous variables. We used multivariable logistic regression to identify factors independently associated with participation.

Results: In bivariable analyses, likelihood of participation was positively associated with increasing membership (p < .001), meeting attendance (p < .001), publication of an organizational newsletter (p < .001), presence of a women's auxiliary (p = .02), and location within 44 miles of the VAMC (p = .047). On multivariable analysis, only meeting attendance and census tract-level educational attainment predicted participation.

Conclusions: Greater membership sizes, meeting attendance, and more group resources might be important factors for researchers to consider when initiating community-based health and wellness programs.