University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
Health Promot Pract. 2022 Jul;23(4):708-717. doi: 10.1177/15248399211002851. Epub 2021 Apr 2.
The Arthritis Foundation's Walk With Ease (WWE) program has been shown to reduce arthritis symptoms and increase physical performance for up to 1 year. However, research on community-based WWE implementation is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine early implementation at community organizations that received 1-year WWE implementation grants from the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance.
Program managers at five Osteoarthritis Action Alliance grantee organizations participated in 45-minute telephone interviews. Interviewees represented organizations with the highest WWE enrollment at 6 months ( = 3, >30% of goal enrollment) and no enrollment at 6 months ( = 2). The Planning for Sustainability framework guided qualitative analysis of factors affecting early implementation.
All grantees were confident in WWE's evidence base, thought it a beneficial supplement to other programming, stressed the importance of senior leadership support for WWE, and engaged community partners for marketing support and as walking sites. Implementation experiences unique to low enrollment grantees were (1) recent major structural changes within their organization, (2) difficulties in communicating logistics internally, and (3) difficulties in balancing WWE with other responsibilities. All organizations experienced barriers that required altering their original implementation plans; however, practical solutions like adapting the program to improve flexibility, training organizational staff as leaders, and utilizing community partnerships served to address multiple barriers simultaneously.
Building organizational capacity by overcoming early barriers is a key element of early implementation. Our findings offer concrete solutions to early WWE implementation barriers and suggest the need for further research on adaptations to improve WWE's flexibility in community organizations.
关节炎基金会的“轻松行走”（WWE）计划已被证明可在长达 1 年内减轻关节炎症状并提高身体机能。然而，针对社区 WWE 实施情况的研究有限。本研究的目的是研究从骨关节炎行动联盟获得为期 1 年 WWE 实施赠款的社区组织的早期实施情况。
五个骨关节炎行动联盟受赠组织的项目经理参加了 45 分钟的电话访谈。受访者代表在 6 个月时 WWE 入学率最高（= 3，超过目标入学率的 30%）和在 6 个月时无入学率的组织（= 2）。可持续规划框架指导了影响早期实施的因素的定性分析。
所有受赠者都对 WWE 的证据基础充满信心，认为它是其他计划的有益补充，强调了高级领导层对 WWE 的支持的重要性，并与社区合作伙伴合作以获得营销支持和作为行走场所。低入学率受赠组织的实施经验具有以下特点：（1）组织内部最近发生了重大结构变化；（2）内部沟通后勤方面存在困难；（3）平衡 WWE 与其他职责存在困难。所有组织都遇到了需要改变其原始实施计划的障碍；然而，像调整计划以提高灵活性、培训组织工作人员担任领导以及利用社区伙伴关系同时解决多个障碍这样的实际解决方案，有助于克服早期障碍。
通过克服早期障碍来建立组织能力是早期实施的关键要素。我们的研究结果为早期 WWE 实施障碍提供了具体的解决方案，并建议进一步研究适应性改进，以提高 WWE 在社区组织中的灵活性。
