Mine local, think global: Clinical data-mining in international settings

This presentation describes and illustrates a practice-based research methodology – Clinical Data-Mining (CDM) as a strategy for engaging international social work and allied health practitioners in empirically evaluating their own endogenous forms of practice. The ultimate dual goal of CDM is both formative and summative, i.e. to improve agency practice and to contribute to knowledge more generally. As such, these contributions begin as ‘local', but through conceptual reflection and/or empirical replication they may be ‘globalized'. Implemented in health and mental health settings in Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, the paper describes the strengths, limitations, primary and secondary benefits of CDM. Perhaps its greatest strength is to highlight the importance of contextual, e.g., organizational, cultural and demographic differences in intervention implementation and effectiveness.