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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Carol L. Woodell, BSPH, StatEpi, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC NC, 919-541-7234, carol@rti.org, Amy Roussel, PhD, Division for Health Services and Social Policy Research, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, Angela Burroughs, MSPH, PharmaLinkFHI, 4309 Emperor Blvd, Ste. 400, Durham, NC 27703, LaVerne Reid, PhD, Health Education, North Carolina Central University, 138 Health Science Building, 1801 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC 27707, Robert Aronson, DrPH, Department of Public Health Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402, and Project DIRECT Evaluation Study Group, Division of Diabetes Translation NCCDPHP, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy, NE, Atlanta, GA 30341.

Project DIRECT (Diabetes Intervention Reaching and Educating Communities Together) was the first comprehensive, community-based project in the United States to address the growing burden of diabetes among African-Americans. The goal of Project DIRECT was to use existing knowledge of diabetes risk factors and complications to implement community-level interventions to reduce the prevalence and severity of diabetes in communities with large African-American populations. RTI International conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the project during 2002-2005. The community-based participatory approach played an important role in the evaluation and greatly contributed to the quality of the findings. However, the approach is not without challenges. This presentation will describe the processes, benefits and challenges of designing and implementing the community-based participatory evaluation for Project DIRECT and will identify key elements of a successful participatory approach based on the Project DIRECT experience.

Methods:

The presentation will enlarge upon the lessons learned from the evaluation with insights from the emerging literature on community-based participatory research. Some supplemental information will also be gleaned from additional semi-structured interviews with members of the community who participated in the evaluation's Advisory Council. The presentation will demonstrate how a collaborative community-based participatory evaluation can retain scientific principles, incorporate the needs of various stakeholders, build capacity among all parties, produce useful data, and generate respect for evaluation activities within the community. The findings will be compared and contrasted with the findings and experiences of similar evaluation frameworks as reported in the emerging literature on community-based participatory evaluation.

Learning Objectives:

• - Identify key elements of a community-based participatory evaluation approach.
• - Describe the processes, benefits and challenges of designing and implementing a community-based participatory evaluation for Project DIRECT and outline the lessons learned that could benefit similar evaluations.

Keywords: Community Participation, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No