Sustainable Childhood Obesity Prevention through Community Engagement (SCOPE) has developed Live 5-2-1-0, a multi-sectoral, multi-component community-based childhood obesity prevention initiative grounded in systems thinking and participatory research principles. Building on previous work, this study continued implementation of an innovative knowledge exchange model, RE-FRAME, in two 'new' and two 'existing' Live 5-2-1-0 communities. This mixed-methods study examined follow-up data to determine the nature and extent of the model's ability to build and sustain community capacity and facilitate the scale-up and sustainability of systems- and community-level change. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using stakeholder interviews, and quantitative process tracking (PTT) and capacity building tools (CCBT), and were analyzed using thematic analysis and descriptive statistics, respectively. Results from three communities with baseline and follow-up CCBT data showed capacity domain scores increased (15/27; 56%) or remained constant (10/27; 37%) over the study period. PTT data showed over 50 multi-sectoral community partnerships formed in Community D (new) and 108 actions implemented. Stakeholder interviews identified having a common cause, co-ownership, champion networks and consistency of the Live 5-2-1-0 message as essential to sustainability of the initiative. RE-FRAME supports knowledge exchange and community capacity-building that is integral to initiating and sustaining a community-based childhood obesity prevention initiative.
Keywords: capacity building; childhood obesity; collective impact; community-based participatory research; health promotion; knowledge exchange; scalability; sustainability; systems thinking.