Conducting needs assessment using the Comprehensive Participatory Planning and Evaluation (CPPE)mode to develop nutrition and physical activity interventions in a rural community in the Mississippi Delta.

Authors: NDIRANGU, MURUGI - UNIV SO MISSISSIPPI; PERKINS, HELEN - HOLLANDALE NIRI COMMITTEE; YADRICK, KATHLEEN - UNIV SO MISSISSIPPI; WEST, JENNIFER - NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIV; Bogle, Margaret; AVIS-WILLIAMS, AMANDA - DELTA NIRI; SANTELL, ROSS - ALCORN STATE UNIVERSITY; CONNELL, CAROL - UNIV SO MISSISSIPPI

Submitted to: Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education and Action
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/4/2006
Publication Date: 3/16/2007
Citation: Ndirangu, M., Perkins, H., Yadrick, K., West, J.R., Bogle, M.L., Avis-Williams, A., Santell, R., Connell, C. 2007. Conducting needs assessment using the Comprehensive Participatory Planning and Evaluation (CPPE) mode to develop nutrition and physical activity interventions in a rural commmunity in the Mississippi Delta. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education and Action. 1(1):41-48.

Interpretive Summary: Community, university and ARS partners in a Lower Mississippi Delta community collaborated to identify and prioritize the most important nutrition and physical activity problems in their community, as a basis for planning ways to address these problems. They used the Comprehensive Participatory Planning and Evaluation (CPPE) approach during two workshop sessions to identify problems and their root causes, as well as to identify and rank possible interventions to address the problems. The top problems identified by this community were intake of unhealthy foods, lack of nutrition education, and lack of adequate physical activity. Community members and university and ARS partners developed models to describe the potential causes of the problems. Finally they developed a menu of potential interventions as well as criteria by which to rank the interventions. The menu of interventions consisted of ten objectives to address the identified problems and a total of 27 intervention activities to address the objectives. The problems, causes, and intervention recommendations developed through the CPPE approach became the basis for planning and implementation of intervention research in the community.

Technical Abstract: Members of a Lower Mississippi Delta community and university partners used the Comprehensive Participatory Planning and Evaluation (CPPE) model to assess nutrition and health problems and develop a menu of interventions. Our objectives were: 1) To identify and prioritize nutrition and physical activity problems in the community. 2) To identify interventions to address the problems. Community members and university partners used the CPPE process to identify and prioritize nutrition and physical activity problems. The participants developed causal models to breakdown the identified problems to their root causes. They then developed a menu of interventions and criteria to rank the interventions. The identified problems were intake of unhealthy foods, lack of nutrition education, and lack of adequate physical activity. The menu of interventions consisted of 7 objectives to address poor nutrition and physical activity, as well as a total of 19 interventions to meet these objectives. Directly involving community members in identifying health problems and solutions results in the development of interventions that are likely to have greater acceptability with the community.