An Innovative Approach to the State Public Health Action 1305 Grant: Epidemiology and Evaluation Collaboration for Performance Measure Reporting in Maine

BACKGROUND:  In June 2013, the Division of Population Health (DPH) at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) was awarded the State Public Health Action 1305 Grant (1305); this grant addresses the U.S. CDC’s four chronic disease prevention and health promotion domains in the prevention and control of diabetes, heart disease, overweight/obesity and promotion of school health. State health departments commonly work with external partners to supplement the internal capacity for various functions, including epidemiology, surveillance, and program evaluation.  Often, many surveillance measures overlap with evaluation outcomes leading to duplicative efforts and wasted resources.  This abstract describes DPH’s formation of an epidemiology-evaluation collaboration as an evidence-based practice for efficiently addressing 1305 performance measures.

METHODS:  During the initial planning stages of epidemiology analysis plans and evaluation activities, it was clear many performance measures overlapped between epidemiology and evaluation efforts.  DPH program managers engaged their internal chronic disease epidemiologists and an independent evaluator, Partnerships for Health (PFH), to jointly support surveillance and evaluation activities for the 1305 grant.  The Maine CDC regularly reports on operationalized short-term, intermediate, and long-term performance measures related to the four domains as defined by the U.S. CDC. Working together, the PFH evaluation team and the chronic disease epidemiologists reviewed a total of 95 performance measure by type (short-term, intermediate, long-term) and availability of an existing data source (yes/no).  Measurement and reporting responsibilities of the epidemiology and evaluation teams were based on the following criteria: availability of an existing state-level data source (epidemiologists’ responsibility) or new data collection required (evaluators’ responsibility).

RESULTS:  This collaboration resulted in a strategic framework and visual aids that clearly define the roles of epidemiologists and evaluators within the 1305 grant.  This framework was presented to the entire 1305 team and stakeholders to streamline requests for technical assistance. Monthly epidemiology and evaluation team meetings were scheduled with the 1305 team to review grant progress, adherence to the framework and to facilitate continued collaboration.  

CONCLUSIONS:  In Maine, epidemiologists and evaluators learned the benefit of engaging multiple internal and external partners to efficiently divide surveillance and data collection responsibilities for the 1305 grant. This focus on strategic decision-making early in the process maximizes scarce resources, helps create linkages between data collection efforts statewide, and builds capacity for creating sustainable systems for continued data tracking.