Obstacles to and future goals of ten comprehensive community health promotion projects

Over 100 project staff, community coalition members, and other representatives from 10 comprehensive community health promotion projects in the western United States were surveyed two years into a three year funding cycle about: (1) the problems or obstacles they judged as preventing successful completion of their current goals and objectives, and (2) future goals and objectives they envisioned for their projects. The key issues confronting respondents were diverse, although issues around the process of implementing community health promotion programs were cited more frequently than issues related to the content of health promotion. When respondents were asked to prioritize Future Goals in the second survey, consensus across communities was obtained despite broad differences in the type of community surveyed and the health problem targeted. This study identifies the common organizational and community development problems faced by newly emerging community health promotion programs and has implications for other communities involved in designing, implementing, and evaluating community-wide health promotion programs.