Three-year follow-up of a multi-component community-driven health promotion intervention in Denmark

The article presents a follow-up study of a multi-component community-driven health promotion intervention in Denmark. The study examines the perceptions and actions of professional stakeholders 3 years after completion of a 19 months intervention period addressing healthy living, well-being and social engagement among families with young children living in three rural communities on the Danish island of Bornholm. The intervention was implemented within the framework of Project Health and Local Community, also referred to as Project SoL. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with diverse professional stakeholders of the project. They represented local government, public institutions, private enterprises, civil society organizations and local mass media. The interviews addressed the extent to which the project had sustained its influence on professional stakeholders' perceptions and actions following project completion. Efforts were made to understand if persisting influences were value-based and/or manifested as concrete community-driven actions. The study showed that the project had succeeded in sustaining a positive long-term post-intervention influence among informants regarding the values and principles of the project. Despite their sustained motivation and preparedness to continue implementing coordinated community-driven actions this was severely hampered by lack of coordination after project completion. Instead, some of the stakeholders continued developing and implementing actions based on the values and principles of the project within the framework of their own professional networks. The article discusses the structural factors that are required to sustain complex community-driven interventions and the need to reconsider the nature of external support to community development from being project-based to integrated, strategic and long term.