Innovative Methods for Designing Actionable Program Evaluation.

BackgroundInjury prevention has featured as a relatively low priority on Government health agendas in Europe and elsewhere, the result of which has been a lack of national policy development. Successful...

Unintentional injury and violence are problematic within schools and communities today. Of the 22 million children injured in the United States annually, 10 to 25%, or between 2 and 5 million per year, occur on school property (Children's Safety Network, 1997). A united effort is needed to lower the number of youths who experience nonfatal and fatal injuries. To meet that need, in the spring of 1997 the American School Health Association National Injury and Violence Prevention Task Force (NIVPTF) comprised of health, safety, education, and curriculum experts, was formed. To address the problems of school-related unintentional injury and violence, the NIVPTF formulated eight major recommendations (with related implementation strategies): (1) leadership and partnership; (2) defining injury as a problem; (3) data collection, analysis, and utilization; (4) assessment of school injury and violence prevention policies and practices; (5) the Comprehensive Injury and Violence Prevention Program; (6) comprehensive injury and violence prevention curricula; (7) evaluation of the Comprehensive Injury and Violence Prevention Program and curricula; and (8) school personnel education and development. This article contains a clarification of the need for school injury and violence prevention programs and sample strategies for implementation of each recommendation.

Statement of PurposeThis study’s purpose was to evaluate the National Centre for Injury Prevention and Control’s (NCIPC) extramural research portfolio to: (1) Determine the distribution of investment and how it...

<h3>Statement of purpose</h3> There is untapped potential among public health professionals and public health practitioners without formal public health training to prevent injury sing the National Training Initiative's Core Competencies in Injury Prevention. This presentation will describe North Carolina's approach to enhancing the statewide multi-disciplinary injury prevention workforce, the Injury-Free NC Academy. The Academy was developed in response to the NC State Advisory Council's Strategic Plan for Preventing Injury and Violence recommendation that the state "Develop a statewide injury and violence prevention workforce that meets core injury and violence prevention competencies." <h3>Methods/Approach</h3> The results of a survey, the NTI Competencies, and the PREVENT Institute informed the development of the Academy. Trainees are multi-disciplinary, multi-organisational county-based teams who bring a project to work on throughout the Academy. Two in-person training sessions are held six months apart. Coaching is provided throughout the Academy, including during the six month interim period in which teams are working on their project. Second session topics are determined by the evaluation results of session one. All instructional sessions are immediately applied to team projects using activities and coaching. Team interaction, peer learning, and networking are emphasised. <h3>Results</h3> The three Academies held to date have focused on teen driver safety, overdose prevention, and the prevention of child sexual abuse and sexual violence respectively. The Academy has trained 20 teams working in over 30 of NC's 100 counties. Teams have included social workers, substance abuse, mental health professionals, community advocates, law enforcement personnel, members of the faith community, school personnel, and others. Training, which is always at full capacity, requires at least four days, more if travel is required. While the training is free, participants pay for their own travel and hotel. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Academy experience attests to the perceived need for public health training, and that this training appears complementary to and easily integrated into other disciplines. <h3>Significance and contribution to the field</h3> The Academy provides a low-cost method of enhancing the capacity of the NC multi-disciplinary injury prevention workforce with training in core public health competencies which could be replicated in other states.

Background: Public health practitioners, including injury and violence prevention (IVP) professionals, are responsible for implementing evaluations, but often lack formal evaluation training. Impacts of many practitioner-focused evaluation trainings—particularly their ability to help participants successfully start and complete evaluations—are unknown. Objectives: We assessed the impact of the Injury and Violence Prevention (IVP) Program &amp; Policy Evaluation Institute (“Evaluation Institute”), a team-based, multidisciplinary, and practitioner-focused evaluation training designed to teach state IVP practitioners and their cross-sector partners how to evaluate program and policy interventions. Design: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of 13 evaluation teams across eight states at least one year after training participation (24 participants in total). Document reviews were conducted to triangulate, supplement, and contextualize reported improvements to policies, programs, and practices. Intervention: Teams of practitioners applied for and participated in the Evaluation Institute, a five-month evaluation training initiative that included a set of online training modules, an in-person workshop, and technical support from evaluation consultants. Main Outcome Measure(s): The successful start and/or completion of a program or policy evaluation focused on an IVP intervention. Results: Of the 13 teams studied, a total of 12 teams (92%) reported starting or completing an evaluation. Four teams (31%) reported fully completing their evaluations; eight teams (61%) reported partially completing their evaluations. Teams identified common facilitators and barriers that impacted their ability to start and complete their evaluations. Nearly half of the 13 teams (46%) – whether or not they completed their evaluation – reported at least one common improvement made to a program or policy as a result of engaging in an evaluative process. Conclusion: Practitioner-focused evaluation trainings are essential to build critical evaluation skills among public health professionals and their multidisciplinary partners. The process of evaluating an intervention—even if the evaluation is not completed—has substantial value and can drive improvements to public health interventions. The Evaluation Institute can serve as a model for training public health practitioners and their partners to successfully plan, start, complete, and utilize evaluations to improve programs and policies.

This book is the work of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, United States of America (USA). It brings together 74 authors writing on the widest range of injury prevention topics. The book is in five parts. Part I includes a chapter on the subject of epidemiology and the cost of injury and violence as well as an overview of interventions. Part II is about effective and promising interventions, with five chapters on unintentional injury – falls in adults, motor vehicle injury, drowning, residential fire injury, and sports and recreation injury – and six chapters on violence prevention – child maltreatment, youth violence, suicide, intimate partner violence, sexual violence and maltreatment of elderly people. The chapters have a common broad structure including epidemiology from the USA, the history of prevention, an outline of interventions including commentary on the strength of evidence, some discussion, an outline of research gaps and a conclusion. For example, the chapter on drowning has six detailed pages on interventions divided under subheadings of: products, environment, individual/social behaviour, legislation and multi-level drowning prevention campaigns. The analysis of research gaps follows this same grouping. Part III covers cross-cutting issues, with chapters on changing the built environment to prevent injury, changing the social environment, prevention of alcohol-related injury, reducing misuse of firearms, parenting and the prevention of childhood injury, building resilience to mass trauma events, and trends and challenges in intervention research methods. Part IV is about interventions in the field and covers knowing when an intervention will work in your community, behavioural interventions, developing interventions when there is little science, developing and implementing communication messages, cultural appropriateness, evaluating effectiveness and involving the community. Part V concerns dissemination and adoption of effective interventions and policies, and it has a chapter on dissemination, implementation and the wider use of interventions and encouraging adoption of science-based interventions. There are four appendices on resources, evaluation, data and web material, and a detailed 30-page index. The intention of the publication is to follow its title and to be a handbook, bringing together a wide range of issue-specific and action-oriented analyses to facilitate both understanding and action in injury and violence prevention. The book is clearly directed at those trying to understand or intervene in the USA – the authors are predominantly American; the epidemiology, history, information in the appendices and the references cited have a strong American focus – but it will also have wider currency. While it is not directed at an international audience, the breadth of coverage, the degree of detail and the quality of the scholarship make it useful in understanding specific injury and violence issues and in crafting and implementing interventions. For those with a long memory, this publication is similar in scope and detail to the 1989 supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine,1 reflecting the two decades of research and experience that have occurred since then and, as such, is a very welcome addition to the literature. ■

Context:Recent legislation in states across the United States has required governmental health agencies to take on new and different roles in relation to abortion. While there has been media attention to health department roles in regulating abortion providers, there has been no systematic investigation of the range of activities in which state and local health departments are engaged.Objective:To systematically investigate health department activities related to abortion.Methods:We searched state health department Web sites of the 50 states and District of Columbia using key words such as “abortion” and “pregnancy termination”. Two trained coders categorized 6093 documents using the 10 Essential Public Health Services (EPHS) framework. We then applied these methods to 671 local health department documents.Setting:State and local health department Web sites.Participants:N/A.Results:On average, states engaged in 5.1 of 10 Essential Services related to abortion. Most (76%-98%) state health departments engaged in activities to Monitor Health Status (EPHS1), Enforce Laws (EPHS6), and Evaluate Effectiveness, Accessibility, and Quality (EPHS9). Many (47%-69%) engaged in activities to Inform and Educate (EPHS3), Develop Policies (EPHS5), and Link to Services (EPHS7). A minority (4%-29%) engaged in activities to Diagnose and Investigate Health Problems (EPHS2), Mobilize Community Partnerships (EPHS4), and Assure Competent Workforce (EPHS8). No state engaged in Innovative Research (EPHS10). Few local health departments engaged in abortion-related activities.Conclusions:While most state health departments engage in abortion-related activities, they appear to reflect what the law requires rather than the range of core public health activities. Additional research is needed to assess whether these services meet quality standards for public health services and determine how best to support governmental health agencies in their growing tasks. These findings raise important questions about the role of public health agencies and professionals in defining how health departments should be engaging with abortion.

Advancing injury and violence prevention through data science

Public health professionals increasingly must implement evidence-based strategies in challenging local environments. To effectively apply evidence-based policies and programs within their real-world practice, public health professionals frequently need additional training. We present a curriculum-design framework that guides the development and delivery of professional learning opportunities to more effectively bridge public health research and practice. The framework ensures an appropriate integration of concepts, applied-skills, tools and adult-learning methods. To demonstrate the framework’s potential, we describe four types of learning opportunities focused on injury and violence prevention. We explore the need for more consistent investment in training, technical assistance, and job-shaping to support the professional needs of a workforce that is quickly turning over and inadequately prepared for the rapidly changing circumstances of modern public health practice. Carolyn Crump introduces the topic by describing a curriculum-design framework that addresses training scope, conceptual integration, perspective diversity, pedagogical heuristics, and educational materials. Four training models help demonstrate the framework’s potential and application: i) Annual meetings; ii) Webinars/Workshop; iii) 6 month Academy; iv) Two-Stage Institute. The subsequent presentations provide details of each model. Jennifer Woody presents Model #1 (Annual Meeting) which has occurred among a network of southern states. With limited resources, the network scoped their learning opportunity as a thematic alignment of concepts rather than sequential integration, and emphasises a diversity of practitioner contribution. Formal presentations from both researchers and practitioners, and informal cultural/social networking events, provide opportunities to identify need and interest for more integrated learning opportunities. James Emery presents Model #2 (Webinars/Workshop). With more support and a national reach, the IPOP Training Academy identified a training scope of three webinars followed by a 3 day skills-building workshop. Webinar #1 presents a public health problem. Webinar #2 presents federal, state, and/or local strategies applied to the problem. Selected teams attend Webinar #3 to receive tools for gathering information they bring to the 3 day workshop. Tools can be applied to team projects and feedback provided from instructors and other participants. Nidhi Sachdeva presents Model #3 (6 month Academy). With limited funding and a state-based emphasis, the NC Injury Free Academy modified their training scope into a 6 month experience where teams are coached while also attending two, in-person, 2 day sessions. Diverse community coalitions are selected with a goal to purposefully increase local IVP practitioner skills. Each team is assigned a professional coach who facilitates their progress, reviews materials, and provides instructional support. Carolyn Crump presents Model #4 (Two-Stage Institute). With adequate support, the training scope is expanded to provide two stages of instruction: CORE conceptual learning for individuals (five 1 day workshops to learn a sequence of basic public health and IVP concepts and methods), followed by ENHANCED learning for teams of 4–6 people (seven-month project with 4 in-person training/coaching sessions). Steve Marshall provides a brief concluding summary and articulates the need for more consistent investment in training, technical assistance, and job-shaping to support the workforce’s evolving needs and capacity for IVP practice. The proposed format is a series of presentations of varying length with slides.

A review of the material published in Injury Prevention highlights the interdisciplinary nature of our field. From identifying the number and nature of injuries in different settings to implementing and evaluating the injury control measures we develop, a range of expertise, experiences and approaches are required.1 It is clear that research alone does not prevent injury.2 As a field, injury prevention has long embraced the need to ensure research findings are relevant to practice and society.3 This is never more evident than at the biannual Australasian Injury Prevention Network (AIPN) conference, where the mix and interaction of research, policy and practice papers, across different disciplines, is showcased and celebrated. Although injury prevention is interdisciplinary and global in scope, one notable challenge is that the size of the workforce is relatively small—certainly smaller than the injury problem we are working to address. Planning and effort to build a workforce capable of addressing growing global demands for injury and violence prevention is needed,4 one that can adapt to changing demands and priorities and collaborate to achieve collective goals, without unnecessary duplication or resource …

Access to injury prevention information is being transformed by the Internet and information technology. These new strategies for “knowledge management” are creating new opportunities for health education and injury prevention. This article provides an overview and a list of internet resources on unintentional injury prevention, acute care and trauma, and violence prevention.

Universal violence and child maltreatment prevention programs for parents: A systematic review

This article explores the challenges that were detected in the first evaluation of the violence prevention programme Mentors in Violence Prevention at senior levels of compulsory schools and upper-secondary schools in Sweden. In particular, we analyse how the gender-transformative dimension and the bystander perspective aspect of the programme played out in the classroom. What are the implications of implementing a gender-transformative violence prevention programme such as Mentors in Violence Prevention when it is carried out by teachers in the school setting? The empirical basis for this study includes classroom observations during all seven Mentors in Violence Prevention sessions in two schools, and group interviews with a total of 14 teachers and 26 pupils (aged 13–19) from five schools. Our findings suggest that most teachers did not appear to be comfortable with either the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme’s pedagogical model or its theoretical approach. Consequently, they occasionally worked in manners contrary to the programme’s intentions. However, observations and interviews demonstrated that a learning process about gender-based violence had been initiated. It may be necessary to make further adjustments if Mentors in Violence Prevention is to be used in schools in Sweden, particularly if teachers are to be the programme leaders.

Systems are investing in workers who come from the communities they serve to meet patient needs that extend well beyond clinic walls.

Regional Public Health Training Centers: An Essential Partner in Workforce Development.