Improving community capacity for influencing actions
on the determinants of health is an immediate outcome
of many Public Health Agency of Canada-funding community-
based programs. Despite the importance of this
outcome, it has been difficult to measure and describe
the contribution of funding programs to improving community
capacity. This paper reports on a study conducted
to develop and establish the psychometric properties of
scales that measure community capacity to address health
issues in the context of federally funded communitybased
programs. A literature review and national think
tank with 21 experts informed the development of the
first draft of the scales that outlined nine key domains of
community capacity. Two focus groups with community
practitioners provided information on the face and
content validity and general usability of this draft instrument.
The revised instrument was sent for pilot testing to
114 community organizations. Qualitative and quantitative
analyses were performed to assess the validity,
reliability and usability of the instrument. Twenty-nine
organizations returned a completed instrument (25%
response rate). Principal Component Analysis confirmed
scale unidimensionality for eight multi-item scales: all of
the component loadings were considered good with all
scales loading between 0.60 and 0.92. Scale internal consistency
was also considered high with alphas between
0.72 and 0.86 for six of these eight scales. Spearman’s
correlations were significant for the remaining two multiitem
scales (composed of two items each), indicating that
the two items for each scale were significantly correlated
to each other. One scale could not be analyzed quantitatively,
as it contained only a single item. Triangulation of
qualitative and quantitative results found consistency in
interpretations of scale response sets. Feedback on the
instrument indicated interest in using it for project planning
and evaluation. Psychometric analyses and triangulation
provided evidence of the construct validity and
reliability of the instrument. The final instrument covers
9 domains and has a total of 26 items, each with a fourpoint
rating scale and a section for qualitative contextual
comments. The instrument provides quantitative and
qualitative information on community capacity within
the context and scope of community-based funding
programs.