There is growing interest in the U.S. and around the world in the potential for place-based initiatives to improve population health and health equity. However, evaluating these complex initiatives is challenging, and evaluation methods have lagged behind. A study recently published in the describes an approach to evaluating the , a US Department of Education-funded place-based initiative to provide cradle-to-career supports for children living or going to school in a 2-square-mile area of West Philadelphia and their families.
Priorities for the evaluation were data transparency, accountability, and democratization. We collected and synthesized data at multiple levels including a population-representative community survey; community-level indicators; an organizational network survey; and administrative school, program, and service utilization records. The team has built a robust infrastructure for community-engaged, participatory research and evaluation in West Philadelphia that is already being leveraged for other projects and translated for other contexts.