Working together for community health-a model and case studies

Case studies describe how each site adopted a form of affiliation other than partnership. Lessons learned included the importance of marrying public health research with the management and organization development literature for the study of organizational affiliation, the need for flexibility in developing a model to address organizational affiliation, and the need for local ownership to ensure maximum benefit. Recommendations include further research to refine elements of the model and a 'partnership' of practitioners, researchers, and funding agencies to use the model in feasibility and evaluation studies of affiliation efforts.