Development of a Comprehensive and Interactive Tool to Inform State Violence and Injury Prevention Plans

Abstract

Context The Center of Disease Control and Prevention’s Core State Violence and Injury Prevention Program (Core SVIPP) provides an opportunity for states to engage with their partners to implement, evaluate, and disseminate strategies that lead to the reduction and prevention of injury and violence. Core SVIPP requires awardees to develop or update their state injury and violence plans. Currently, literature informing state planning efforts is limited, especially regarding materials related to injury and violence. Presumably, plans that are higher quality result in having a greater impact on preventing injury and violence, and literature to improve quality would benefit prevention programming. Objective (1) To create a comprehensive injury-specific index to aid in the development and revision of state injury and violence prevention plans, and (2) to assess the reliability and utility of this index. Design Through an iterative development process, a workgroup of subject matter experts created the Violence and Injury Prevention: Comprehensive Index Tool (VIP:CIT). The tool was pilot tested on 3 state injury and violence prevention plans and assessed for initial usability. Following revisions to the tool (ie, a rubric was developed to further delineate consistent criteria for rating; items were added and clarified), the same state plans were reassessed to test interrater reliability and tool utility. Results For the second assessment, reliability of the VIP:CIT improved, indicating that the rubric was a useful addition. Qualitative feedback from states suggested that the tool significantly helped guide plan development and communicate about planning processes. Conclusion The final VIP:CIT is a tool that can help increase plan quality, decrease the research-to-practice gap, and increase connectivity to emerging public health paradigms. The tool provides an example of tailoring guidance materials to reflect academic literature, and it can be easily adapted to other topic areas to promote quality of strategic plans for numerous outcomes.

Assessing Community-Based Public Health Plans: An Example From US Army Injury Prevention

“…The overall Likert scale score mean for this evaluation, 2.6, was similar to overall means derived from other assessments of plan quality that were around 2.4. 13,14 The range of overall Likert scale scores from this study (0.6-4.9) was similar to those reported by Butterfoss et al 9 (0.2-4.8). The IPT plans evaluated tended to perform best on objectives and activities and somewhat better on goals, whereas civilian assessments found the highest scores for goals than for objectives.…”

“…Similar tools have observed low scores for evaluation in particular. 13,14 Installation personnel communicated that they lacked guidance and standards for creating evidence-based health improvement plans, 3 which likely contributed to the quality of plans. The PQI results provided specific points for performance improvement.…”

“…Specifically, a high proportion of action plans lacked SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive), did not identify responsible parties, and did not include an evaluation plan or timelines. Similar tools have observed low scores for evaluation in particular 13,14. Installation personnel communicated that they lacked guidance and standards for creating evidence-based health improvement plans,3 which likely contributed to the quality of plans.…”

“…The IPT plans evaluated tended to perform best on objectives and activities and somewhat better on goals, whereas civilian assessments found the highest scores for goals than for objectives. [13][14][15] Deficiencies in IPT action plans were identified through the PQI process. Specifically, a high proportion of action plans lacked SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timesensitive), did not identify responsible parties, and did not include an evaluation plan or timelines.…”

Developing indicators to evaluate systems thinking and application in state injury and violence prevention programs

“…Building on existing frameworks that conceptualize and measure public health competencies and infrastructure (Lavinghouze et al, 2014), and integrate systems thinking principles into strategic planning and practice (Smith et al, 2020; Taylor et al, 2018; Wilson et al, 2018), this article proposes a conceptual model and corresponding indicators for measuring organizational systems thinking and application within state public health departments. It is hoped that by identifying these indicators, future research could begin to explore whether systems thinking in public health practice is linked to both process and impact level outcomes (and if so, how).…”