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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Barry C. Dorn, MD¹, Elena Savoia, MD MPH², Marcia A. Testa, MPH PhD³, Leonard J. Marcus, PhD¹, and Michael A. Stoto, PhD². (1) Division of Public Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Landmark Building, 3rd Floor East, Boston, MA 02115, 617-496-0782, bcdorn@hsph.harvard.edu, (2) Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Landmark Building, 3rd Floor East, Boston, MA 02115, (3) Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

Objective:Survey instruments for evaluating public health preparedness have focused primarily on measuring the structure and capacity of local, state and federal agencies in terms of physical and human resources, rather than linkages between structure, process and outcomes. To focus evaluation on the latter we operationalized the linkages among individuals, organizations and systems using the construct of “connectivity” and developed an assessment instrument for its measurement.

Methods:Qualitative analysis of the results from focus groups of emergency preparedness first responders and public health preparedness experts generated 62 items, which were used in the development sample of 187 respondents. Item reduction and factors analyses were conducted to identify and confirm the scale and sub-scale components of the instrument.

Results:The original 62 items in the developmental sample were reduced to 34 items. Five scales explained 70% of the total variance (number of items, % variance explained, Chronbach's alpha) including connectivity with the system (10, 15%, 0.94) co-workers (5, 15% 0.91), the organization (7, 14%, 0.93), individual connectivity perceptions (6, 13%, 0.90) and resources (3, 8%, 0.82). Discriminant validity was ascertained and found to be consistent with the factor structure.

Conclusion:We developed a Connectivity Measurement Tool (CMT) for the public health work force consisting of a 34-item questionnaire and found it to be a reliable measure of connectivity with preliminary evidence of construct validity. The tool is proposed for the evaluation of public health preparedness for identifying gaps in connectivity, which can be remedied through education and training.

Learning Objectives:

• 1)Recognize the importance of connectivity in public health emergency preparedness
• 2)Define connectivity
• 3)Apply an instrument to assess individual, organizational and system connectivity

Keywords: Evaluation, Performance Measures

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation