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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Elena Savoia, MD MPH¹, Barry C. Dorn, MD², Marcia A. Testa, MPH PhD³, Mike Stoto, PhD³, Leonard J. Marcus, PhD², and Paul D. Biddinger, MD, FACEP⁴. (1) Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Landmark Building, 3rd Floor East, Boston, MA 02115, 857-222-7581, esavoia@hsph.harvard.edu, (2) Division of Public Health Practice, 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, (4) Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Heatlh, 677 Huntington Avenue, Landmark Center, 3rd Floor East, Boston, MA 02115

Objective:One of the main objectives of Public Health Preparedness tabletop exercises is to stimulate team building and raise awareness of gaps in communication, connectivity and overall response performance within and across communities.The goal of our research was to develop and validate an instrument to measure participants' perceived connectivity during tabletop exercises.

Methods:During 3 tabletop exercises conducted in Massachusetts and Maine we surveyed 225 subjects from a variety of 10 professional roles, and 7 types of organizations, using the “Connectivity Measurement Tool”, a 34-item questionnaire previously validated, to assess individual, organizational and system connectivity. Factors analyses were conducted to confirm the scales components of the instrument. Simultaneously an external group of evaluators performed a qualitative analysis on the participants' ability to respond.

Results: With respect to the original factors structure of the instrument a new factor was identified describing the gap between the simulated emergency response and participants' expectations on their individual, organizational and system performance. The 5 scales, comprising 34 items, explained 65.5% of the total variance (number of items, % variance explained, Chronbach's alpha) including connectivity with the system (7, 16.2%, 0.94), availability of resources (9, 15.6 % 0.89), individual and co-workers connectivity (8, 14.4%, 0.90), organization connectivity (5, 9.9 %, 0.88), and performance expectations (5, 9.4%, 0.82).

Conclusion:The CMT implemented during tabletop exercises is a reliable measure of perceived connectivity and is proposed as proxy measure of the quality of working relationships within and across communities responding to an emergency.

Learning Objectives:

• 1)Recognize the importance of connectivity during public health preparedness tabletop exercises
• 2)Evaluate the link between perceived connectivity and performance measures
• 3)Assess connectivity within and across communities during tabletop exercises

Keywords: Evaluation, Public Health Agency Roles

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation