Assessing community needs and agency capacity

Description

This tool describes three areas that can affect the quality of public health intervention effectiveness: (a) the community targeted to receive services, (b) the requirements of the intervention, and (c) the capacity of the agency delivering the intervention. When public health agencies endeavour to implement evidence-based interventions, it is important for them to assess their own capacities to determine whether they have the skills and resources necessary to effectively implement these interventions. This tool helps users examine the link between community assessment, agency capacity and intervention effectiveness, and provides resources to guide communities and organizations to implement the most effective interventions.

Steps for Using Method/Tool

When using this tool during the assessment or planning process, agencies can (a) better understand their target population or community, including factors that influence risk-taking behaviours; (b) determine whether possible evidence-based interventions meet the needs of their community and other stakeholders; (c) identify which interventions will have the greatest community impact; and (d) determine whether their agency has the capacity to effectively implement the intervention, including sufficient resources and experience.

A series of assessment questions is provided. The questions are grouped as follows:

1. Suggested questions to assess your community/target population
2. Suggested questions to assess potential evidence-based interventions (EBIs)
3. Suggested questions for adaptation of an intervention (completed only if the agency plans to adapt an existing intervention)
4. Suggested questions to assess agency capacity
5. Suggested evaluation activities

Some of the questions included are specific to HIV prevention interventions; however, most are relevant to public health interventions in general, and the rest can be adapted to suit the user’s specific public health issue.

Next, a tool is provided to help the user assess organizational capacity. This tool compares the recommended prerequisite skills required for individual-, group- and community-level interventions and their corresponding Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Intervention (DEBI) projects. The DEBI project was designed as an evidence-based approach for HIV-prevention that assists in capacity building efforts by bringing science-based, community and group level HIV prevention interventions to community-based service providers. This tool is quite specific to HIV prevention interventions, and is not as conducive to adaptation to other public health interventions.