Session: Measuring Success in Community Level Interventions: Benefits and Constraints (Society for Social Work and Research 15th Annual Conference: Emerging Horizons for Social Work Research)

Community level interventions examine fundamental problems facing communities today, including economic, physical and social issues (Chaskin, Brown, Venkatesh, & Vidal, 2001; Johnson, 1998; Murphy & Cunningham, 2004; Schorr, 1997; Weil, 1996). While the main focus is on creating community level change, these interventions also impact individual, organizational and policy or system-wide outcomes (Ohmer, 2008). Community level interventions can provide rich sources of data; however, their complexity can present methodological constraints, particularly in the area of measurement. This symposium will present a range of studies from pilot to more rigorous designs, demonstrating the benefits as well as constraints for measuring success in community level interventions.

Given their complexity, it is not surprising that the evidence base for community level interventions is relatively thin, particularly in the area of more rigorous designs (Ohmer & Korr, 2006). The first presenter will discuss measures used to examine success in two pilot crime and violence prevention programs which aimed to facilitate collective efficacy in low-income neighborhoods. While the ultimate outcome was to reduce crime and violence, it was not appropriate to measure community level outcomes in these studies. Instead outcomes related to participants' perception of crime and violence and their willingness to intervene were measured before and after the intervention.

The second presenter will discuss measures for a community intervention focused on underage drinking and drunk driving. Community level indicators were used in a cluster analysis to select communities. Challenges were found when trying to extract data for 44 cities within a single county reporting system. However, other measures were collected for baseline indicators of community level change in 3 selected cities and were beneficial in the development of community level interventions.

The third presenter will discuss measures for a community intervention that used community-based participatory research (CBPR) to improve the safety for children living in an economically disadvantaged community. Using systematic social observation and property level measures, the researchers assessed the condition of 1,119 properties to designate properties that posed the greatest potential harm to young people. The results showed that CBPR can be used to initiate a replicable data-driven community organizing effort that can improve safety, aesthetics and physical conditions in low income communities.

The fourth presenter will discuss measurement strategies for a randomized control trial for a community-based intervention that addressed mental, emotional and behavioral disorders in children. Measures were developed to assess the implementation and outcomes of the initiative in 24 participating communities, including telephone interviews with coalition and community leaders, student self-report surveys to assess risk and protective factors and youth problem behaviors, and a longitudinal annual survey of students to determine incidence and prevalence rates regarding health and behavior problems.

This symposium provides a unique opportunity to consider the range of individual to community level measures that can be used to examine community level interventions, as well as possible data sources, including secondary, observational and self-report data. These papers demonstrate strategies for developing social work research capacity to contribute to the evidence base for community level interventions.