Assessing the capacity of health departments to engage in community-based participatory public health

OBJECTIVES: We created indicators of local public health agency capacity to engage in community-based participatory public health. METHODS: We sent a survey of 27 items reflecting aspects of community-based participatory public health to 429 employees in 4 local health departments. Two thirds (n = 282) responded. We performed a factor analysis to identify components of community-based participatory practice. RESULTS: We identified 4 factors: (1) the agency's and (2) the individual employee's skills in working with community groups and minority populations, (3) the extent and frequency of agency networking, and (4) community participation in health department planning. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that it is possible to measure the competencies needed by health department staff to engage in community-based participatory public health.