Disseminating Public Health Evidence to Support State Health Department Prevention of Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases

Information Dissemination Clinical Trial

Official title:

Disseminating Evidence-Based Interventions to Control Cancer

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01978054
• Other study ID #: 201111105
• Secondary ID: 5R01CA160327
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 2013
• Est. completion date: March 2018

Study information

• Verified date: July 2018
• Source: Washington University School of Medicine
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate dissemination strategies to promote the uptake of evidence-based cancer and other chronic disease prevention among state-level public health practitioners. Dissemination strategies such as multi-day in-person training workshops and electronic information exchange modalities are hypothesized to associate with improved access and use of public health evidence and organizational supports for program and policy decision making based on evidence-based public health.

Description:

Evidence-based public health approaches to prevent cancer and other chronic diseases have been identified in recent decades and have the potential for high impact. Yet barriers to implement prevention approaches persist as a result of multiple factors including lack of organizational support, limited resources, competing priorities, and limited skill among the public health workforce. The purpose of this study was to learn how best to promote the adoption of evidence based public health practice related to chronic disease prevention. This cluster randomized trial aimed to evaluate the dissemination of public health knowledge about evidence-based prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases and test receptivity and usefulness of dissemination strategies directed toward state health department chronic disease practitioners to enhance capacity and organizational support for evidence-based chronic disease prevention. Twelve state health department chronic disease units were randomly selected and assigned to intervention or control. State health department staff and the university-based study team jointly identified, refined, and selected dissemination strategies. Intervention strategies included multi-day in-person training workshops, remote telephone follow-up and technical assistance, supplemental brief remote trainings, and health department work unit procedural changes to support and strengthen evidence-based decision making. Evaluation methods included pre-post surveys and structured qualitative phone interviews.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 1703
• Est. completion date: March 2018
• Est. primary completion date: November 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 21 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• State Health Department chronic disease units (cluster) in the United States and corresponding public health workforce (individuals within cluster)

Exclusion Criteria:

• State health department has received extensive technical assistance and training comparable to our intervention (dissemination activities)

• Origin state has no logical matching pair matched state based on state population size

• Origin state has the lowest excess burden of cancer and other chronic risk and disease

• Origin state health department has lowest or highest capacity for EBDM as determined from previous research

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Chronic Disease
• Evidence-Based Public Health
• Information Dissemination

Intervention

Other:
• Dissemination of public health knowledge
State health department chronic disease units will be involved with developing and choosing dissemination activities to spread public health knowledge and information on population-based public health strategies that have been shown to reduce risk factors for cancer and other chronic diseases. Example of activities include: multi-day in-person training workshops and electronic information exchange modalities.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Prevention Research Center in St. Louis, Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis	Saint Louis	Missouri

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Washington University School of Medicine	National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Organizational supports for evidence-based decision making (EBDM)	Self-report Likert scale items in 4 factors: access to evidence and skilled staff, program evaluation, supervisory expectations and incentives for EBDM, and participatory decision-making	18-24 months post baseline
Secondary	EBDM competencies	Self-report Likert scale items measure perceived importance and availability of specific public health practitioner skill sets for EBDM	18-24 months post baseline
Secondary	Use of research evidence for job tasks	Self-report frequency items for 6 job tasks, summary variable creating by calculating the mean frequency across the tasks	18-24 months post baseline

External Links

•   Baseline research evidence use among public health practitioners in state health departments, and how practitioners obtain evidence
•   Click here for more information about this study: Strategies in Disseminating Evidence
•   Intervention effects primary and secondary outcomes from pre-post survey data
•   Manager perspectives on organizational supports for evidence-based public health from interviews
•   Organizational support associations with research evidence use in state public health agency chronic disease prevention units
•   Study protocol entitled "Promoting state health department evidence-based cancer and chronic disease prevention: a multi-phase dissemination study with a cluster randomized trial component"