Effects of advice-seeking patterns on community coalitions' outcomes: A social network analysis

Community coalitions are well-positioned to address local conditions affecting health. Coalitions rely on interactions among members to address community issues and plan for sustainability. Individuals and agencies participate voluntarily, and substantive decisions are generally made as a group. Hence, coalitions operate largely through advice rather than top-down directives. This study examined whether advice-seeking patterns within coalitions influenced members' perceptions of their collective outcomes. Indegree advice-seeking is centered on consulting a few specialized sources and outdegree advice-seeking draws upon a few people to reach out to numerous others. Surveys at two timepoints collected data from an unduplicated total of 1256 members of 62 coalitions in Pennsylvania and Missouri on their advice-seeking ties, with responses aggregated to the coalition level. Regression analyses examined how coalition patterns of intersectoral communication and indegree and outdegree centralization, respectively, were associated with changes in perceived community improvement, sustainability planning, and coalition sustainability. Intersectoral communication was not related to coalition outcomes. Indegree advice-seeking centralization was negatively associated with planning for coalition sustainability (B = −0.43, β = −0.22, 95% confidence interval [−0.84, −0.01], p <.05); and outdegree advice-seeking centralization was negatively associated with coalition sustainability (B = −0.88, β = −0.31, 95% CI [−1.65, −0.10], p <.05). These findings suggest that decentralized advice-seeking patterns foster coalition sustainability.