Linking Research and Public Health Practice A Review of CDC's Program of Centers for Research and Demonstration of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Management and Oversight of the Prevention Research Centers Program
Management and Oversight of the Prevention Research Centers Program
Pages 49-64
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From page 49... ...
The discussion focuses on management issues that are related to the quality of the research and demonstration projects undertaken by the individual PRCs, as discussed in the preceding chapter. These issues include the definition of prevention research, criteria for evaluating the PRCs, and procedures for mobilizing and allocating resources in their support.
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From page 50... ...
Health promotion requires a scope of research that may not have a direct application to prevention of specific diseases or disabilities, at least in the short run. Health promotion research, for instance, addresses risl`-taking among adolescents, which indirectly affects lifelong patterns of tobacco, alcohol, and substance use, as well as sexual behaviors that affect teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and AIDS.
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From page 51... ...
by CDC program units, and only PRCs are eligible to compete for the funds. Current planning for SIP funding has been an ad hoc process of garnering funds remaining at end of the fiscal year from agencies, divisions, or offices of the federal government that can use the SIP funding mechanism to expedite spending for discrete research projects.
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From page 52... ...
In order to clarify CDC's expectations regarding the PRC program's contributions, the committee recommends that · CDC should provide guidance to the PRCs about the role of the PRCs' themes in selecting core research and demonstration projects and SIPs. NETWORKING, COMMUNICATION, AND DISSEMINATION Improved Communication and Interaction The PRC program has created a group of 13 PRCs with similar interests and goals.
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From page 53... ...
This can be attributed to some degree to a lack of communication between PRC program staff at CDC and other CDC units, as well as a lack of opportunity to identify mutually beneficial and innovative projects. The PRC program can enhance prevention research and the public's health through improved communication and networking mechanisms.
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From page 54... ...
Community Input The added value of the PRC program is its focus on community-based research, and CDC should encourage the public health practice community and other agencies and sectors to take greater advantage of the resource represented by the PRCs in their region and elsewhere. Another way for CDC to achieve greater involvement of the PRCs with the practice community would be to require, as a condition of funding, that the planning processes at PRCs involve representatives from their communities.
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From page 55... ...
PRCs have not regularly and systematically reported their findings concerning dissemination and implementation to CDC, and CDC does not have a mechanism for assembling findings from the PRCs in order to promote such activities. Thus, to improve the quality of dissemination research in the PRC program, the committee recommends that · CDC should set specific expectations for dissemination research in the PRC program and encourage the PRCs to communicate their findings concerning dissemination and implementation methods among themselves and to the broader public health community.
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From page 56... ...
The core funding of the PRCs is dedicated to developing community-based projects that enhance health, building and maintaining strong working relationships with community organizations, and establishing better-informed
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From page 57... ...
The criteria should enable one to measure performance in the following programmatic areas: · development of innovative research and demonstration projects; · success in conducting demonstration projects (the extent of implementation, proper evaluation, effective dissemination of research findings and lessons learned, altered health behaviors, practitioner functioning, program planning, policy decisionmaking in the population, and other measures) ; publication of research articles in peer-reviewed journals; · other peer-reviewed products such as videotapes, curriculum, and intervention program guidelines that communicate research results to public health practitioners and the population that they serve; · an effective working relationship with the public health practice community, including but not limited to official state and local health departments; · success in disseminating research results to public health practitioners in the PRC's local area and elsewhere; · a demonstrated role in enhancing public health resources in the community (measured by the number of trainees placed in local public health agencies, the impact on policy changes in the community, and similar activities)
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From page 58... ...
The committee supports CDC's commitment to providing core funds on an ongoing basis to allow PRCs to undertake innovative community-based research activities that are difficult, if not impossible, to support through other funding sources. The committee emphasizes, however, that the CDC needs to encourage the use of core funding to support activities that are likely to produce generalizable research results that will advance the science of health promotion and disease prevention.
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From page 59... ...
programs, competitive merit review, especially that involving external reviewers, should be the preferred way to make awards." The NAS report relies on the principle that the highest-quality projects and people should be supported with federal research funds, and finds that the bestknown mechanism to accomplish this is some form of open competition involving evaluation of merit by peers. Competitive merit review requires the use of criteria that include technical quality, the qualifications of the proposer, relevance and educational impacts of the proposed project, and other factors pertaining to research goals rather than to political or other nonresearch considerations.
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From page 60... ...
. To date, planning for SIP funding has been an ad hoc process of garnering funds at the end of the fiscal year from agencies, divisions, or offices of the federal government that use the SIP funding mechanism to expedite spending to complete discrete research projects.
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From page 61... ...
The committee encourages CDC to promote innovation by developing a process of research formulation that is more interactive than either the proactive process of most SIP funding or the reactive process of investigator-initiated grants that have not included consultation with either local or federal consumers of research. One option would be for CDC to institutionalize a triangulation process that would involve PRCs, state or local health departments, and CDC in a process of developing research topics.
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From page 62... ...
For some institutions, the amount of core funding available may not be adequate to cover the considerable amount of faculty and staff time needed to initiate and maintain a PRC. Faculty diverted from teaching or from research projects with larger budgets may generate costs not fully covered by core funds.
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From page 63... ...
Core funding expressly earmarked for linking and enabling community-focused structures and functions would be very attractive to these institutions. The relatively low level of core funding for the PRC program and the complications of the SIP funding mechanism, however, may, in the committee's judgment, have caused some of the more research-oriented schools of public health and academic health centers to decide not to apply for funding under the PRC program.
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