Resources > Blog > August 30, 2021

HEALTHY PARKINSON’S COMMUNITIES™ RESOURCE ROUNDUP: How to measure ongoing progress in your community

Data review on table at office

This month, we are sharing ideas and resources that explore how to measure ongoing progress in your community. Collecting meaningful data to measure progress is incredibly important. Not only does this feedback create opportunities for adjusting your work along the way (and thus ensuring you are reaching and helping people effectively), but measuring change also allows you to learn about and share victories. And it helps you communicate the impact of your team’s work to external audiences, which is critical for garnering support and funding to sustain and grow your efforts. 

Below are some of our favorite tools and resources to help tackle this challenging work. What other approaches have you come across? Tell us by contacting us at communities@dpf.org. 

Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives from Community Tool Box
This is a model for evaluating community initiatives that are designed to improve quality of life. It dives into the importance of evaluations, provides a logic model for community evaluation, and shares several recommendations for anyone executing the evaluations.  

Participatory Evaluation from Community Tool Box
This resource reviews how to involve stakeholders in all phases throughout the evaluation process. It includes comprehensive details on why participatory evaluation is important, when to use it, how to use it, when to get people involved, and how to involve stakeholders in the processes.  

How Livable is Your Community? from AARP Livability
The Livability Index scores from AARP rates neighborhoods and communities across the United States for the services and amenities that impact people’s lives the most. Use this tool to learn how livable your community is. To explore what defines a livable community and how the AARP scores are determined, see the information from AARP here 

Conducting Surveys from Community Tool Box
This robust resource is designed to teach the basics of conducting surveys, including survey creation, distribution and collection, and how to utilize survey data. It also includes details on how to prepare, distribute, and analyze survey results. 

Conducting Interviews from Community Tool Box
This tool includes detailed information on how to prepare for, conduct, and use information from key informant interviews. It dives into who should conduct the interviews, who should participate, and how to conduct a meaningful interview. 

Constituent Survey of Outcomes: Ratings of Importance from Community Tool Box
This section dives into how a constituent survey of outcomes will help examine the greater impact of your work by posing questions to group members and community experts. It includes detailed information on what a constituent survey of outcomes is, why it should be used, how to use it, and how to conduct the survey.  

Dementia-Friendly Community Evaluation Guide from Dementia Friendly America
This toolkit from Dementia Friendly America is a robust guide to evaluating community initiatives as an ongoing process. It outlines important considerations from how to get started to how to communicate findings.  

Catch Up on All Our Resource Roundups

If you have missed or would like to revisit content from past months of our Healthy Parkinson’s Communities Resource Roundups, here is a list of resources we have previously shared: