| Sumario: | Community coalitions are well‐positioned to address local conditions affecting health. Coalitions rely on interactions among members to address community issues and plan for sustainability. Individuals and agencies participate voluntarily, and substantive decisions are generally made as a group. Hence, coalitions operate largely through advice rather than top‐down directives. This study examined whether advice‐seeking patterns within coalitions influenced members' perceptions of their collective outcomes. Indegree advice‐seeking is centered on consulting a few specialized sources and outdegree advice‐seeking draws upon a few people to reach out to numerous others. Surveys at two timepoints collected data from an unduplicated total of 1256 members of 62 coalitions in Pennsylvania and Missouri on their advice‐seeking ties, with responses aggregated to the coalition level. Regression analyses examined how coalition patterns of intersectoral communication and indegree and outdegree centralization, respectively, were associated with changes in perceived community improvement, sustainability planning, and coalition sustainability. Intersectoral communication was not related to coalition outcomes. Indegree advice‐seeking centralization was negatively associated with planning for coalition sustainability (B = −0.43, β = −0.22, 95% confidence interval [−0.84, −0.01], p <.05); and outdegree advice‐seeking centralization was negatively associated with coalition sustainability (B = −0.88, β = −0.31, 95% CI [−1.65, −0.10], p <.05). These findings suggest that decentralized advice‐seeking patterns foster coalition sustainability. Highlights: Used group effectiveness model to frame hypotheses on communication patterns in coalitions.Examined types of interactions among coalition members to seek advice.Tested hypotheses about coalitions' advice‐seeking patterns using social network analysis.Used regression models to test hypotheses on intersectoral communication and centralization.Showed the utility of network methods to analyze the effect of communication ties on coalition outcomes.
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