Functions of Community Networks
Networks offer a means of making progress towards preventing and addressing obesity when no single organization has the expertise or resources to bring about change. Networks also ensure that obesity prevention programs take a broad perspective to address the individual and environmental factors that affect obesity.
- Recruiting program participants
- Identifying resources (e.g. meeting space for classes)
- Changing organization policies to support physical activity and healthy eating
(such as opening school facilities to communities for physical activity or making healthy foods available at places of worship) - Offering insight on informational needs and learning styles
- Helping identify and select evidence-based or promising intervention strategies
- Adapting or developing curricula and materials
- Ensuring cultural relevance
- Ensuring sustainability of the obesity prevention program
Networks come in a variety of forms and serve different purposes. Examples of community networks are presented in Table 2-1.
| Type of Network | Typical Role | Typical Membership |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-sector coalitions | Assemble partners for a specific purpose or to solve a particular problem. Members include all who are affected by the problem. | Representatives and resources from numerous issue areas (e.g., education, economic development, transportation, agriculture, health) and sectors (business, nonprofit, government) |
| Regional coalitions | Collaborate around a defined program of action to improve health in a specific geographic area (as large as one or more states, or as small as a metropolitan area) | Voluntary organizational members |
| Wellness councils | Act collectively to carry out efforts at specific sites (e.g., schools or worksites) to improve the health of people within that institution | Staff and employees (and in schools, the community members, family members, and students) |
| Community advisory boards | Formalize academic-community partnerships in community-based participatory research and represent community members in research activities | Representatives from regional organizations (for-profit, nonprofit, school, faith-based, government) as well as community members |
| Steering committees | Provide advice and guidance to those planning an intervention | Broad community representation |