Collective Action for Prevention and Health Promotion: Exploring the Role of Community Coalitions in Substance Misuse Prevention Ecosystems

Abstract

An approach to addressing complex social issues that has become ubiquitous in recent decades is the establishment of community coalitions and collaboratives. Prevailing theories of community coalition action suggest that the relational processes of community coalitions improve communities’ capacity to address issues and opportunities in their communities, yet the literature linking community coalitions to increases in community capacity is small, scattered, and limited in scope. This manuscript-style dissertation uses qualitative and quantitative data collected from county-level substance misuse prevention coalitions in Tennessee to provide an enriched exploration of coalitions’ relational processes and outcomes. Findings indicate that community coalitions’ actions and development are influenced considerably by the organizational ecosystems and networks of interpersonal relationships in which they are embedded. Network analysis, which foregrounds the relationships that link actors in a system, represents a promising approach to clarifying the mechanisms that link coalitions to increases in community capacity.