Type II EVIDENCE

Effectiveness of Community Interventions Project (ECIP)

The Effectiveness of Community Interventions Project (ECIP) is an inter-departmental initiative between the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, which began in October 2003. The project has evolved out of a need to gain better understanding of the success of different community interventions and their relevance in influencing different outcomes that lead to improved health, in order to provide useful evidence for shaping policy and program decision-making in population health. The Effectiveness of Community Interventions Project is one of the measures by which Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada are strengthening their evaluation function. The overall goals of ECIP are to:

• Provide a model/tool to help in assessing the effectiveness of community interventions;
• Increase the dialogue around the measurement of effectiveness among Program areas; and
• Encourage further investigation on effectiveness related to community interventions.
  

The Framework is based on a realist synthesis approach (Pawson, 2000) that links the immediate, intermediate and long-term health outcomes with the context and with the process components needed for a successful community intervention.An analytical method assigning relative values to each mechanism has been developed (in coll. with the Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research), to allow for the synthesis of all components into an index of effectiveness (see attached diagram). An initial set of objective and subjective indicators has been developed for data collection and an empirical validation of the index with national and international projects is planned to be performed starting in 2006. By allowing the assessment of the overall effects of investments in community-based health promotion interventions, the index of effectiveness will help to guide policy and funding decisions in the future, and thus to ensure program accountability.

Knowledge Flow Between Policy Research and Practice

This collaborative venture between the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Regional Offices and Policy Research Unit (PRU) evolved out of a desire to gain a better understanding of the bidirectional flow of information between policy research and regional practice. The long-term goal of this project is to identify the relationships and mechanisms required to promote the incorporation of PRU research into practice, and regional practice into PRU research.
A survey was conducted in August and September 2005 to identify best practices and gaps in how information is shared, in order to develop a baseline of knowledge.

The results in the knowledge exchange mechanisms section showed that questionnaire respondents indicated that they most frequently learned about projects or program areas through: internal meetings or workshops (28%); colleagues (28%); and intranet, Internet or HC Broadcast News (the employees’ daily newsletter) (27%).Externalconferences and reports were less frequently reported as ways that respondents had heardabout projects and program areas (7% and 16%, respectively).

Based on a combination of the questionnaire and the interview results, preferredmechanisms for knowledge exchange were identified as: face-to-face dissemination betweencolleagues; internal meetings or workshops; and informative Web sites paired with listservs.Less preferred mechanisms were external conferences or general e-mail messages that arenot specifically targeted to a certain group or individual.

The main elements considered key to enhanced knowledge exchange and uptake wereidentified as:

• accountability, i.e. to have a clear mandate and dedicated resources for knowledgetransfer;
• capacity, i.e. to build capacity in the Regions and PRU to disseminateproject/program information;
• relationships, i.e. to establish formal and informal relationships to foster collaborationbetween PRU and Regional Offices; and
• appropriate format, i.e. to tailor research results or program information formattingto facilitate easy and timely access, and overcome issues such as lack of time and/orresources.

A meeting was held in February 2006 to allow representatives of all offices which participated in the project to discuss the results. Concrete actions were agreed upon as next steps to move things forward. It was proposed to establish a policy network in the Regions, and PRU announced their willingness to tour the Regional Offices over the next year to present PRU main research projects. Both expressed their commitment toincrease informal meetings and joint initiatives between their groups, and encouragedparticipants to select one or two mechanism(s) and include them in the next year’s businessplan. Meeting participants agreed on the need to create a work group with Regions and PRUrepresentatives to develop a work plan for the upcoming year, as well as to identifychampions to ensure that their recommendations are acted on. Many participantshighlighted that the project results should be shared more broadly, as they could provehelpful to other groups within the Agency.

Others

Examples of other types of projects and information that would be reported on include, but are not limited to the following:

• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Mental Health Evidence Project (MHE)
• Health Policy Impact Project (HPI)

For more information, contact publichealthpractice@phac-aspc.gc.ca
or call toll free: 1-877-430-9995.