Scale development of individual and organisation infrastructure for heart health promotion in regional health authorities

Objective : The purpose of this study was to validate measures of individual and organisational infrastructure for health promotion within Alberta's (Canada) 17 Regional Health Authorities (RHAs). Design : A series of phases were conducted to develop individual and organisational scales to measure health promotion infrastructure. Instruments were designed with focus groups and then pre-tested prior to the validation study. Setting : In 1993 all hospitals and Public Health Units in the province of Alberta were regionalised into 17 RHAs, with responsibility for public health, community health, and acute and long-term care. While regionalisation may offer more opportunity for community participation, reorganisation of the public health system may have fragmented and diluted resources and skills for heart health promotion in some RHAs. Infrastructure (for example, human and financial resources), amongst other items, is believed to contribute to the capacity to promote health. Method : All 17 RHAs participated in the study, yielding a total of 144 individuals (that is board members, senior/middle management, and front line staff). These representative employees completed a self- administered questionnaire on individual- and organisational-level infrastructure measures. Results : Psychometric analyses of survey data provided empirical evidence for the robustness of the measures. Principal component analyses verified the construct validity of the scales, with alpha coefficients ranging from 0.75 to 0.95. Conclusion : The scales can be used by health professionals and researchers to assess individual- and organisational-level infrastructure, and tailor interventions to increase infrastructure for health promotion in health organisations.