Associations between partnership characteristics and perceived success in Dutch sport-for-health partnerships

Highlights

•	Challenges of conducting quantitative research on sport-for-health partnerships are shown.
•	Conceptual model for exploring relations partnership elements and partnership success.
•	Different partnership success indicators are related with different partnership elements.

Abstract

To reach and include socially vulnerable people through sport, it is important to create partnerships between sports organisations and public health organisations (i.e., sport-for-health partnerships). Working in sport-for-health partnerships is challenging, however, and little is known about how to manage such partnerships. To explore possible predictors of successful sport-for-health partnership, the authors administered a questionnaire among 86 participants in Dutch sport-for-health partnerships. The questionnaire included measures pertaining to three indicators of successful inter-sectoral partnership (i.e., partnership synergy, partnership sustainability, and community outcomes) and nine partnership elements that may predict its success. Multivariate results suggest that (a) partnership synergy may be best predicted by communication structure and building on the partnership participants’ capacities, (b) community partnership outcomes may be best predicted by partnership visibility and task management, and (c) partnership sustainability may be best predicted by partnership visibility. Hence, the authors would recommend actors in sport-for-health partnerships to pay particular attention to communication structure, building on capacities, visibility, and task management.

Keywords:

• Intersectoral collaboration
• Wider social role of sports
• Sports clubs as setting for health promotion
• Disadvantaged people

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jarl Kampen from Wageningen UR for his advices on methodological issues in this study. We would like to thank the funding organisations for providing the contact information of the partnerships and for supporting the data collection. The study is funded by NWO, the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (project number: 328-98-007).