New Mexico Community Health Councils: Documenting Contributions to Systems Changes

What are the Goals?

• • To develop a theory of change linking intermediate, systems-level changes to longer-term community health outcomes.

• • To create an evaluation system to document intermediate outcomes.

Purpose of the Paper

• • To present data on four intermediate, systems-level outcomes for 23 community health coalitions in the areas of substance abuse, diabetes/obesity, teen pregnancy and access to care: 1) Networking and partnering, 2) joint planning of strategies, programs, services, 3) leveraging resources, and 4) engaging in policy change initiatives.

What Are the Findings?

• • Councils identified local public health priorities and addressed those priorities by:

• • Strengthening networks and partnerships which lead to the creation and enhancement of strategies, services and programs;

• • Leveraging $1.10 for every dollar invested by the funding agency; and

• • Serving as a hub for information on policies; advocating for changing existing policies, identifying new policies, assessing the potential impacts of proposed or existing polices, and introducing ballot initiatives.

Who Should Care Most?

• • Community-based coalitions working on multilevel, long-term public health issues.

• • Public health practitioners and researchers working with community coalitions in planning and evaluation.

Recommendations for Action

• • Build community coalitions capacity to identify and evaluate systems-level goals and objectives.

• • Provide adequate funding for sustained planning, implementation, and evaluation of community-based coalitions.