147078 Leadership, communication, and social networking in public health emergency preparedness: Construct validity of a measurement tool

Wednesday, November 7, 2007: 12:30 PM

Elena Savoia, MD MPH , Preparedness Emergency Response Research Center, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Marcia A. Testa, MPH PhD , Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Paul D. Biddinger, MD, FACEP , Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Paul Campbell, ScD , Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Rebecca Orfaly Cadigan, MS , Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH , Center for Public Health Preparedness, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Michael Stoto, PhD , School of Nursing & Health Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
           
Objective

To test the construct validity of a measurement tool assessing leadership and management (LM), communication with the public (CP), communication within public health (CPH) and social networking(SN) in public health emergency preparedness.

Methods

The study population comprised 400 participants of 5 tabletop exercises conducted in Massachusetts and Maine. Internal consistency of multi-item scales was calculated by means of Cronbach's alpha. The Kaiser-Guttman rule was used to determine the number of factors to be retained. Factors were rotated using varimax rotation. Towns were grouped by quartiles of density of population, median household income and population size.

Results

The 25-item questionnaire was subjected to a principal components analysis. A four–factor solution accounted for 71% of the total variance and could be meaningfully interpreted. We found a linear relationship between income and leadership ability with an increase of 9 points in the leadership score per quartile of median household income (p-value <0.001). The same relationship between income and factor score was found analyzing the CPH scale. We hypothesized and found a curvilinear relationship between CP and population size. Small and medium size communities showed better communication with the public compared to large size communities (cubic term p-value=0.02). Further analysis showed that rural areas are less connected compared to metropolitan areas with a quadratic relationship between rurality and social networking(p-value=0.01).

Conclusion

We developed a Measurement Tool consisting of a 25-item questionnaire found to be a reliable and valid measure of leadership, communication and social networking abilities in public health emergency preparedness.

Learning Objectives:
1) Recognize the importance of leadership, communication and social networking in public health emergency preparedness 2) Apply an instrument to assess differences in leadership, communication and social networking among communities 3) Integrate subjective measurement tools in the evaluation of public health emergency preparedness

Keywords: Evaluation, Performance Measurement

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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