Community-based organizations (CBOs) are critical for delivering evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to address cancer inequities. However, a lack of consensus on the core skills needed for this work often hinders capacity-building strategies to support EBI implementation. The disconnect is partly due to differing views of EBIs and related skills held by those typically receiving versus developing capacity-building interventions (here, practitioners and academics, respectively). Our team of implementation scientists and practice-based advisors used group concept mapping to engage 34 CBO practitioners and 30 academics with experience addressing cervical cancer inequities implementing EBIs. We created group-specific maps of skills using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis, then compared them using Procrustes comparison permutations. The 98 skills were sorted into six clusters by CBO practitioners and five by academics. The groups generated maps with statistically comparable underlying structures but also statistically significant divergence. Some skill clusters had high concordance across the two maps, e.g. "managing funding and external resources." Other skill clusters, e.g. "adapting EBIs" from the CBO practitioner map and "selecting and adapting EBIs" from the academic map, did not overlap as much. Across groups, key clusters of skills included connecting with community members, understanding the selected EBI and community context, adapting EBIs, building diverse and equitable partnerships, using data and evaluation, and managing funding and external resources. There is a significant opportunity to combine CBO practitioners' systems/community frames with the EBI-focused frame of academics to promote EBI utilization and address cancer and other health inequities.
Keywords: capacity-building; community-based organizations; evidence-based interventions; group concept mapping; health inequities; implementation science.
Community-based organizations (CBOs) are pivotal in delivering evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to tackle cancer inequities. It is critical to build capacity (knowledge, motivation, skills, and resources) among CBO staff to find, adapt, evaluate, and implement these programs. However, capacity building is often constrained by a lack of consensus on the views of EBIs and the core skills needed to implement EBIs. Our prior research suggests that those developing capacity-building interventions (often academics) and those delivering them (usually CBO practitioners) may have differing conceptual models when identifying essential skills for EBI implementation. To explore these differences, our team of implementation scientists and community advisors engaged 34 CBO practitioners and 30 academics working to address cancer inequities through EBI implementation. Using group concept mapping methods, we created and compared maps of skills for each group. While the overall structures of the group-specific maps were similar, there were notable differences. As an example, CBO practitioners focused distinctly on skills for connecting with community members, whereas academics integrated this aspect into broader partnership activities. The findings underscore the need to bridge CBO practitioners’ community-oriented viewpoints with academics’ EBI-focused perspectives when developing capacity-building interventions, particularly in the context of addressing inequities.
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.