I have to admit-- my blog has become similar to the millions that are there that no one has touched in years. The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions....
Lately I've worked on tools for systematic reviews. I hope to provide some links soon but in the meantime, there is lots of help if you're thinking of completing a systematic review!
More on this later.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, August 22, 2008
Resources from blog moved to web page
Well, I was having a hard time finding some of the resources I'd linked to from the blog. And if I'm having a hard time, I figured anyone taking part in the workshop was having an even harder time! So I wised up and moved things to a web page. Where did everything go?
http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/charting/handouts/ebph_handouts/ebph_workshop.htm
I'm going to maintain the blog, just in a slightly different way. I'd like to add more EBPH newsy links to the site, stuff not necessarily related to my workshops. We'll see. I'm kind of busy, it gets hard to look for things.
But, here's a thought-- I may just try looking for something public health related, something topical, and ask for comments. Dunno. What do you think? How do you think this blog can be best utilized?
http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/charting/handouts/ebph_handouts/ebph_workshop.htm
I'm going to maintain the blog, just in a slightly different way. I'd like to add more EBPH newsy links to the site, stuff not necessarily related to my workshops. We'll see. I'm kind of busy, it gets hard to look for things.
But, here's a thought-- I may just try looking for something public health related, something topical, and ask for comments. Dunno. What do you think? How do you think this blog can be best utilized?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
More about the week 4 workshop
The first few weeks of this 4-week workshop provided an overview to the EBPH 6-step process (O'Neall, M. A., & Brownson, R. C. (2005). Teaching evidence-based public health to public health practitioners. Annals of Epidemiology, 15(7), 540-544. ).
We spent one week on data gathering and one week exploring literature databases. During the last session, I covered resources with a consumer-health bent. I did that because so many PH workers are in clinics, work with clinic staff, put on health fairs, or need to design programs for the public.
However, now that the data is gathered and the literature has been researched, it's time to review the last 3 steps of the EBPH process:
4.Develop program or policy options
5.Create an implementation plan
6.Evaluate the program or policy
I don't have anything new for steps 4 or 5-- put those health theories to work and revise your logic models. But, the evaluation part has been in the back of my mind. I see this as something that can really make or break a program. After all, you can put together the best intervention ever seen but if you don't have the data to support it you won't get refunded!
So here are a few links to evaluating your programs.
We spent one week on data gathering and one week exploring literature databases. During the last session, I covered resources with a consumer-health bent. I did that because so many PH workers are in clinics, work with clinic staff, put on health fairs, or need to design programs for the public.
However, now that the data is gathered and the literature has been researched, it's time to review the last 3 steps of the EBPH process:
4.Develop program or policy options
5.Create an implementation plan
6.Evaluate the program or policy
I don't have anything new for steps 4 or 5-- put those health theories to work and revise your logic models. But, the evaluation part has been in the back of my mind. I see this as something that can really make or break a program. After all, you can put together the best intervention ever seen but if you don't have the data to support it you won't get refunded!
So here are a few links to evaluating your programs.
CDC Evaluation Working Group: Framework for Program Evaluation
WK Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook
Association for Community Health Improvement: Outcomes Measurements
The latter item is a meta-site-- it points to bunches of other resources. I don't normally like to do that, but they've pulled together a great list of outcomes measurements.
I want to give a big THANK YOU to my Tuesday group. They were great-- stuck with me through these 4 weeks. We had a hurricane last week (well, sort of-- we thought we were going to have a hurricane!) but other than that they were here for each class, asked questions, made comments-- I really had a good time. I hope they did as well.
Questions or comments to this or any post can be published through the blog or sent to me directly from the Ask-A-Librarian link in the upper left corner of the blog.
Last week of workshops!
Hi all,
My first group is almost finished with the 4-week session. I have had so much fun! I have 2 more classes-- today and Thursday. Same topic-- additional resources. Yeah, not much of a name but that's what we're covering.
What are the resources?
◦MedlinePlus (NLM)
◦ToxMap (Texas) (NLM)
◦Household Products Database (NLM)
◦Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce
Why these?
MedlinePlus is *the* best source for consumer health information. If you're working in a clinic or you have practitioners who work in clinics, you can point your patients and their families to MedlinePlus. Excellent prescription drug information, great links to handouts, and lots of pointers to *local* resources. The last item refers to the Go Local project sponsored by the National Library of Medicine. Local health sciences libraries have joined in on the project and created awesome directories of services.
ToxMap is one of my favorite NLM projects. If you want to see where the big polluters are, go to ToxMap. If you want to know the health effects of the pollution around you, go to ToxMap. If you want to see the historical trends of the polluters around you, go to ToxMap.
Another favorite site of mine is the Household Products Database. You can look up products by name brand, by ingredient, or by manufacturer. You can even look up products by health effect. Try it-- go to the link above and look up "asthma".
Lastly, the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce site is an attempt (and a very well done attempt at that!) to link the PH workforce to key resources that they may find useful in their positions. Training, conferences, health education/promotion resources, data, grants-- you name it and if it's of benefit to PH, it's there.
That's all for now. Recordings for the presentations will be posted later.
My first group is almost finished with the 4-week session. I have had so much fun! I have 2 more classes-- today and Thursday. Same topic-- additional resources. Yeah, not much of a name but that's what we're covering.
What are the resources?
◦MedlinePlus (NLM)
◦ToxMap (Texas) (NLM)
◦Household Products Database (NLM)
◦Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce
Why these?
MedlinePlus is *the* best source for consumer health information. If you're working in a clinic or you have practitioners who work in clinics, you can point your patients and their families to MedlinePlus. Excellent prescription drug information, great links to handouts, and lots of pointers to *local* resources. The last item refers to the Go Local project sponsored by the National Library of Medicine. Local health sciences libraries have joined in on the project and created awesome directories of services.
ToxMap is one of my favorite NLM projects. If you want to see where the big polluters are, go to ToxMap. If you want to know the health effects of the pollution around you, go to ToxMap. If you want to see the historical trends of the polluters around you, go to ToxMap.
Another favorite site of mine is the Household Products Database. You can look up products by name brand, by ingredient, or by manufacturer. You can even look up products by health effect. Try it-- go to the link above and look up "asthma".
Lastly, the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce site is an attempt (and a very well done attempt at that!) to link the PH workforce to key resources that they may find useful in their positions. Training, conferences, health education/promotion resources, data, grants-- you name it and if it's of benefit to PH, it's there.
That's all for now. Recordings for the presentations will be posted later.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Week 2: Data Sources recordings
Well, week 2 of the EBPH webinars has just come to a close. What a great group! Thanks for the questions. I've got some research to do (dang, homework!!!). Actually, the homework is pretty interesting.
For example, the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System has data for Texas and Texas minus the Houston Independent School Districts. Why? And is the data for the HISD available separately? It turns out it is!! There is a page for local data with a link to Houston data.
Want to know more? The recordings are available online now from the two sessions if you'd like to take a listen. While I have the same agenda for both sessions, there will be a few unique tidbits in each session. For example, during the Thursday session we looked at pregnancy data from VitalWeb. Way cool, if you ask me.
Tuesday Data Sources recording
Thursday Data Sources recording
The sessions did refer to a couple of handouts (Census data, birth data, death data) so I wanted to be sure to include the link to those.
Lastly, thank you to the participants of these sessions who give me feedback, let me know when I can't be heard or the screen can't be seen! I've made some changes in how I do things to try and improve my performance; the feedback is absolutely essential! And thank you for questions! Keep them coming.
Next week, we'll look at research databases (i.e. journals articles and such) so we gonna have some fun! Hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am....
For example, the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System has data for Texas and Texas minus the Houston Independent School Districts. Why? And is the data for the HISD available separately? It turns out it is!! There is a page for local data with a link to Houston data.
Want to know more? The recordings are available online now from the two sessions if you'd like to take a listen. While I have the same agenda for both sessions, there will be a few unique tidbits in each session. For example, during the Thursday session we looked at pregnancy data from VitalWeb. Way cool, if you ask me.
Tuesday Data Sources recording
Thursday Data Sources recording
The sessions did refer to a couple of handouts (Census data, birth data, death data) so I wanted to be sure to include the link to those.
Lastly, thank you to the participants of these sessions who give me feedback, let me know when I can't be heard or the screen can't be seen! I've made some changes in how I do things to try and improve my performance; the feedback is absolutely essential! And thank you for questions! Keep them coming.
Next week, we'll look at research databases (i.e. journals articles and such) so we gonna have some fun! Hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am....
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Determinants of health
During both webinars, I mentioned a couple of articles I'd read related to determinants of health. These particular articles were meaningful to me for different reasons. I wanted to share the citations with you so you can judge for yourself!
As I was developing CHARTing Health Information for Texas, I needed a framework for organizing the determinants of health. Someone referred me to this article:
Hillemeier,M.M.; Lynch,J.; Harper,S.; Casper,M. Measuring contextual characteristics for community health. Health Serv.Res. 38, (6 Pt 2), 1645-1717, 2003.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2003.00198.x
and it made so much sense to me! Their schema really helped me pull together all of the links I had into a cohesive format. At least, it was cohesive for me!
Another article I mentioned was one about the importance of African-American males completing high school to greatly reduce the risk of them entering the criminal justice system. I'm not wording it very well so here's the 1st sentence from the author's abstract, "This paper analyzes the relationship between levels of educational attainment and outcomes for African American males, in particular the likelihood of conflict with the criminal justice system. "
Here's the citation:
African-American Males: Education or Incarceration. By: Green, Robert L.. 1991 34 pp. (ED346184)
Lastly, I mentioned an analysis of research on various social determinants of health to determine if there was one determinant more influential than any others. According to this author, it's education! I still need to find the article but as soon as I do, I will post the citation here.
Happy weekend!
As I was developing CHARTing Health Information for Texas, I needed a framework for organizing the determinants of health. Someone referred me to this article:
Hillemeier,M.M.; Lynch,J.; Harper,S.; Casper,M. Measuring contextual characteristics for community health. Health Serv.Res. 38, (6 Pt 2), 1645-1717, 2003.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2003.00198.x
and it made so much sense to me! Their schema really helped me pull together all of the links I had into a cohesive format. At least, it was cohesive for me!
Another article I mentioned was one about the importance of African-American males completing high school to greatly reduce the risk of them entering the criminal justice system. I'm not wording it very well so here's the 1st sentence from the author's abstract, "This paper analyzes the relationship between levels of educational attainment and outcomes for African American males, in particular the likelihood of conflict with the criminal justice system. "
Here's the citation:
African-American Males: Education or Incarceration. By: Green, Robert L.. 1991 34 pp. (ED346184)
Lastly, I mentioned an analysis of research on various social determinants of health to determine if there was one determinant more influential than any others. According to this author, it's education! I still need to find the article but as soon as I do, I will post the citation here.
Happy weekend!
Xtreme logic models!
During the Thursday session, I mentioned a book by some fo the faculty here at the UTSPH. It's called "Planning HealthPromotion Programs : Intervention Mapping, 2nd Edition" by L. Kay Bartholomew, Guy S. Parcel, Gerjo Kok, and Nell H. Gottlieb. The title of the first edition was just plain "Intervention Mapping".
I'm really simplifying it by calling intervention mapping an "Xtreme logic model". Basically, they describe a systematic approach to intervention mapping using behavioral theories, data, and research to guide the processes. It's an amazing book and well worth the $$ spent on it.
In addition, they've made available an online resource:
http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/chppr/interventionmapping/
Lastly, Dr. Bartholomew offers a short course (face to face) a couple of times each year. I believe the next course is coming up soon!
NEW SHORT COURSE: Intervention Mapping: Developing and evaluating theory- and evidence-based programs for health education and health promotion(August 2008 and April 2009)
I'm really simplifying it by calling intervention mapping an "Xtreme logic model". Basically, they describe a systematic approach to intervention mapping using behavioral theories, data, and research to guide the processes. It's an amazing book and well worth the $$ spent on it.
In addition, they've made available an online resource:
http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/chppr/interventionmapping/
Lastly, Dr. Bartholomew offers a short course (face to face) a couple of times each year. I believe the next course is coming up soon!
NEW SHORT COURSE: Intervention Mapping: Developing and evaluating theory- and evidence-based programs for health education and health promotion(August 2008 and April 2009)
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