Enhancing the rigor and relevance of Practice-based Research through Maps: Making PHAST Research “dynamic”

Background: The Institute of Medicine (2011) endorses an approach to practice-based research that engages practitioners in compiling, analyzing, and interpreting data. Measures in the Public Health Activities and Services Tracking (PHAST) data base are being reviewed and validated by public health practitioners in participating PBRN states. This research was conducted to assure rigor, utility, dissemination, and translation of PHAST-related studies by engaging practice partners in the research process.

Methods: On-line surveys were developed by the study team that include visual displays of PHAST-related measures on maps, spatially describing patterns and trends in LHD services and other spatially varying phenomena over time and among LHDs. Survey questions relate to validity checking, data quality, interpretation, additional research questions, and implications for practice. Data captured from on-line surveys are populated by investigators during live and telephone interactions or provided by practitioners themselves after reviewing preliminary findings.

Results: Practitioners appear to provide more feedback in response to the geographic visual display of preliminary findings than when data are provided by text and/or table. LHD representatives are quick to validate findings and identify or interpret anomalies with the data, when presented with geographic depictions of data in jurisdictions they are familiar with. Practitioners vary in their interpretation of preliminary findings and the practice implications they perceive, based on their practice setting and positional point of view.

Conclusions: The opportunity to visualize geographic relationships between variables offer an effective means for PBRN researchers to more actively engage with each other in assuring study rigor and translation.