Health Promotion and Community Program Development
What this domain tests
Needs assessment, planning models, evidence-based interventions, partnerships, implementation, and evaluation in community, worksite, and public health settings.
Core rules and concepts
- Begin with a needs assessment: epidemiological data, surveys, focus groups, key-informant interviews, and asset mapping. Define the priority population, determinants, and community readiness.
- Planning models: PRECEDE-PROCEED (predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors; administrative and ecological diagnosis), intervention mapping, and logic models linking inputs → activities → outputs → short-term outcomes → long-term outcomes.
- Write SMART objectives at three levels: process, impact, and outcome - each with a baseline and a time frame.
- The socio-ecological model spans individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy levels; multi-level interventions outperform single-level ones.
- Social marketing uses the four Ps - product, price, place, promotion - with audience segmentation and formative research.
- Evidence-based strategies include point-of-decision prompts, social support, built-environment changes, worksite policy, self-monitoring, and group programs.
- Partnerships with schools, employers, clinics, parks, and faith organizations need clarified roles, memoranda of understanding, data-sharing agreements, and a sustainability plan.
- Evaluation: RE-AIM (reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance); mix quantitative and qualitative data.
Worked example
A city wants more activity. Rather than launching a generic campaign, it surveys residents and conducts a walking audit, finding unsafe crossings and no evening programming. It launches a weekly evening walking group with a partner community center alongside crosswalk improvements, and sets SMART targets: 120 participants in 12 weeks (reach), 60% attending at least 8 sessions (implementation), a 15-minute weekly increase in self-reported walking (impact), and a funded budget line in year two (maintenance).
Traps that cost marks
Skipping the needs assessment and copying another site's program; counting flyers distributed as success; writing objectives with no baseline or deadline; ignoring sustainability after grant funding ends; designing only for the population easiest to reach.