Charles Perkins Centre, D17, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Charles Perkins Centre, D17, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Health Promot J Austr. 2021 Jul;32(3):492-502. doi: 10.1002/hpja.374. Epub 2020 Jul 23.
Formal (eg funded) community-level organisational collaborations are becoming more common in prevention. Rapid methods to assess organisational relationships could allow us to consider the significance of any pre-existing relationship patterns in communities that might impact on collaboration effectiveness. Insights may identify new options for practice.
We used social network analysis to study organisations engaged in prevention but not (yet) part of a formal purposive collaboration. Within a single community, we identified organisations providing programs in chronic disease prevention. We used whole network analysis methods to describe the extent to which organisations were aware, had contact, coordinated activity and/or collaborated more intensively. We also identified the contribution made to prevention locally. Results were compared with key informant interviews.
There was an identifiable network structure, with more relationships across the network than one would expect by chance. The network had a core-periphery structure, meaning that, in terms of the relationships we measured, there were highly connected organisations who were strongly interlinked with each other (the core), alongside less connected organisations that were linked to the core but not to each other (the periphery). Core organisations were significantly more likely to have expertise in prevention and to have prevention staff.
To our knowledge, it is new to identify inherent or "pre-existing" core-periphery structures in interorganisational health promotion. Yet, core-periphery structures are common in many social settings. They advantage entities in the core and are prone to further entrenchment. SO WHAT?: Our results map and quantify intuitive understandings about organisational "key players", thus enabling practitioners/organisations to critically reflect on what their role should be when it comes to activating communities ie to embed, or attempt to counterbalance, pre-existing power structures.
正式（例如有资金支持）的社区层面组织合作在预防领域越来越普遍。快速评估组织关系的方法可以让我们考虑社区中任何预先存在的关系模式对合作有效性的影响。这些见解可能会为实践提供新的选择。
我们使用社会网络分析来研究参与预防但尚未成为正式有目的合作一部分的组织。在单个社区内，我们确定了提供慢性病预防项目的组织。我们使用整体网络分析方法来描述组织之间的相互了解、联系、协调活动和/或更深入合作的程度。我们还确定了组织在当地对预防的贡献。结果与关键知情人访谈进行了比较。
存在可识别的网络结构，网络中的关系比预期的随机关系多。该网络具有核心-边缘结构，这意味着就我们测量的关系而言，存在高度连接的组织，它们彼此之间紧密相连（核心），还有一些连接较少的组织与核心相连，但彼此之间没有联系（边缘）。核心组织更有可能在预防方面拥有专业知识和预防工作人员。
据我们所知，在组织间健康促进中识别固有或“预先存在”的核心-边缘结构是新的。然而，核心-边缘结构在许多社会环境中很常见。它们有利于核心实体，并容易进一步巩固。因此：我们的结果描绘和量化了对组织“关键参与者”的直观理解，从而使从业者/组织能够批判性地反思他们在激活社区时（即嵌入或试图平衡预先存在的权力结构）应该扮演的角色。
