Evaluation of the First Year of the Cross-Sector Innovation Initiative: Lessons Learned in Advancing Cross-Sector Alignment

Abstract

The Cross-sector Innovation Initiative (CSII) funded 10 communities for 2 years to support public health, health care, and social services sector alignment and community engagement to improve health equity and population health. The CSII is founded on the idea that working in alignment across sectors, in partnership with the community, better positions agencies and the communities they serve to address health inequities in meaningful and innovative ways. This evaluation identified the activities that sites undertook during the first year of the program to align sectors and engage the community, and factors that facilitated and hindered those efforts. The evaluation utilized secondary data from project reports and primary data from observations of peer-to-peer learning events. This evaluation found that cross-sector alignment benefits from a sustained focus on longer-term goals and the ability to build, strengthen, and maintain trust and commitment among cross-sector partners and community stakeholders and to explicitly include community voice and participation.