African American church health programs: what works?

The church is a community resource that can help address areas of health disparity for African Americans by offering programs focused on primary prevention. Use of a logic model as a program evaluation tool highlights church priorities and program linkages (problems, goals, objectives, activities, outputs, and outcomes), providing clear evidence about meeting program expectations. Faith community nurses can lead program development, easily incorporating logic models within programming efforts. Church-based programs that document positive outcomes enhance program usefulness and value as a community health resource.