Funder: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on Smoking and Health
Staff Contact: Annaliese Calhoun
Project Duration: 2010-present

 

Since 2010, CPHSS has developed, refined, and is now disseminating a tool designed to measure program capacity for sustainability. This work was initially funded by the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and is currently funded by the CDC, Office on Smoking and Health. Recognizing that sustainability is a major challenge for all kinds of programs, CPHSS wanted to create a tool that staff, managers, funders, and evaluators could use to measure their program’s sustainability. To develop the tool, CPHSS conducted a comprehensive literature review and used expert-informed Concept Mapping. Expert input was obtained from researchers, funders, and state and local program managers from four primary chronic disease program areas: tobacco control, obesity prevention, heart disease and stroke prevention, and injury prevention. The resulting framework and tool identified a range of critical factors affecting program sustainability capacity.

 

CPHSS then used the tool during trainings and evaluations with over 550 individuals and over 250 unique programs at the state and local levels. CPHSS ran extensive psychometric analyses on these pilot data to further refine the tool. The final Sustainability Framework and Assessment Tool has been reliability tested and can be used by programs in a variety of levels and settings to better understand and plan for their sustainability.

 

CPHSS is now entering the dissemination phase of this project. The Center offers webinars and workshops on the Sustainability Framework and Tool. CPHSS is also building a website that will allow users to take the tool online, receive immediate results, and access resources on sustainability planning.