Community development as health promotion: evaluating a complex locality-based project in New Zealand

This article examines the evaluation of a complex public health intervention - the Ranui Action Project (RAP). The RAP utilized a community development approach to address the social determinants of health inequalities in a high need, ethnically diverse, urban locality. The rationale and impetus for the project was emerging evidence in the public health literature on the significance of working intersectorally with an emphasis on social capital and social cohesion as neighbourhood-level determinants of health. This article describes RAP and examines the strengths, limitations and challenges of the formative, process and impact evaluation model used to evaluate the programme's effectiveness. Responding to diverse evaluative expectations, while sustaining research integrity and rigour, requires a pragmatic multi-methods approach, responsiveness to local context, regular communication between funders, community stakeholders and evaluators, and flexible, reflective practice.