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BACKGROUND: The Florida Asthma Surveillance System supports the overall efforts of the Florida Department of Health’s Asthma Program and partners statewide. The Florida Asthma Program (FAP) was established in 2009 with funding under a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The goal of the FAP is to improve asthma management and quality of life for those Floridians living with asthma through interventions, partnerships, surveillance, and evaluation. The goal of the Florida Asthma Surveillance System is to compile and analyze data from a variety of sources to create comprehensive reports that will best support key stakeholders – those who are in positions to make an impact on asthma prevention and control. Key stakeholders include local and state public health professionals, health care practitioners, individuals with asthma and their families, program administrators, the general public, policy makers, and media. The FAP developed and implemented a three-year evaluation plan (spanning 2011 through 2013) to continually assess how the surveillance system is performing and how it can be improved to better meet needs of the program, partners, and other stakeholders.
METHODS: A mixed methods approach was used for this evaluation, yielding a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Evaluation methods included ongoing tracking of report distribution, data uses, and high impact outcomes, and annual surveys of stakeholder satisfaction with data products, interviews with data users, and monitoring website hits and report downloads. Findings from annual evaluations have been used to develop, implement, and monitor progress on improvement plans.
RESULTS: Findings were collected systematically and used to identify three overall goal areas for surveillance system improvement: 1) Expanding reach, 2) Improving user satisfaction, and 3) Increasing data use and resulting outcomes. Specific tasks/activities were defined to achieve each of these goals. Overall, improvement efforts resulted in:
- Standardized distribution process for data products
- Increased stakeholder satisfaction with reports
- Increased job satisfaction of the epidemiologist
- Number of partner organizations included in dissemination process increased from 6 to 88
- Number of distribution channels increased from 4 to 11
- Number of data uses increased from 11 to 65
- Number of high impact outcomes increased from 3 to 13
- Number of visits to the asthma data and reports web page increased by 58%
CONCLUSIONS: A highly functioning surveillance system can accelerate accomplishment of public health goals and objectives. Continual evaluation and improvement of surveillance efforts can help epidemiologists and program managers maintain highly functioning surveillance systems with increased efficiency and impact.