Volume 30, Issue 6: December, 2003

*Building Community Capacity Around Chronic Disease Services Through a Collaborative Interorganizational Network

Keith G. Provan, Leigh Nakama, Mark A. Veazie, Nicolette I. Teufel-Shone and Carol Huddleston, RN

This article presents the findings of a study examining the evolution of a net work of health and human ser vice organizations operating in a rural community in the border South west. The aim of the net work was to build the capacity of the community to provide chronic disease education, prevention, and treatment ser vices by developing collaborative relationships between a broad range of organizations. The impetus for the effort was based on receipt of a Turning Point grant. The findings, based on two waves of data collected 1 year apart, demonstrate how net work structure and attitudes toward collaboration evolve as a community attempts to build capacity to address its health needs.