New Research Investigates the Structure of Coalition-Committee Partnerships

In this recently published paper, researchers with Catalyzing Communities explore how the structure of community coalitions may impact the success of childhood obesity prevention interventions. Community coalitions or multi-sector collaborations, formed to pool resources and support broader change initiatives, are diverse, composed of change makers from sectors like schools and philanthropy and vary in the nature of their partnerships. Lead author, Travis Moore, PhD, notes that these coalitions have network features that may be important to consider when designing and implementing child health interventions. This paper uses social network, multidimensional scaling, and multiple correspondence analyses to look across 5 coalitions the Catalyzing Community team works with, to explore their patterns. Catalyzing Communities is an initiative under the banner of ChildObesity180 that engages community coalitions from across the U.S., supporting their efforts to improve child health.