A story of partner engagement using data synthesis and social network analysis as evaluation approaches

Abstract Information: Partners play a vital role in advancing public health priorities. Therefore, understanding partners, their priorities, mutual goals, and their strategic engagement becomes crucial. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Workforce Development Office of Policy, Partnerships, and Recruitment (OPPR) works with different partners to educate policymakers, implement public health workforce programs, and develop strategies to strengthen the public health workforce. These partners support national efforts to recruit, train, and build the workforce. To create a holistic evaluation approach to partner engagement, OPPR collaborates across the division and throughout CDC. OPPR has started systematically synthesizing and analyzing internal partner engagement data, available from different platforms, to measure partnerships and evaluate utility of these platforms and data provided. Additionally, OPPR is exploring social network analysis to understand the structural (e.g., interconnectedness) and relational (e.g., attributes affecting connectedness) aspects of partner engagement. These approaches will contribute to understanding partnership effectiveness more fully and guide the alignment of goals, strategies, and activities with partners. In this session, the presenter shares approaches used and explored to understand partner engagements and their contributions to the public health workforce. Attendees may be able to leverage these approaches and methods in their own settings and programs. Attendees will learn how OPPR: (1) harnesses different data sources to delineate and understand partnership data to create their partner engagement story, and (2) explores social network analysis to organize and visualize metrics to understand the nature of partner connections.

Relevance Statement: Public health has a long history and tradition of working with partners to achieve a shared vision and outcomes (Price, et al., 2020). Establishing and maintaining partnerships can be complex, time-consuming, and sometimes difficult to manage (Hardy, et al., 2003). Partnership development is not a linear process, because partner functions and operations vary depending on their goals and interests. Therefore, understanding the effectiveness of partnerships becomes essential for a systematic process to identify feasible partnership strategies and activities. Having a better understanding of who the partners are, how they interact, and what they do, can create intended partnership outcomes that contribute to partnership longevity. The Office of Policy, Partnerships, and Recruitment (OPPR) in the Division of Workforce Development at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works closely with partners to implement public health workforce related activities, educate policy makers, and develop strategies to strengthen the public health workforce. OPPR closely monitors and tracks partner priorities and activities using multiple internal and external data systems and platforms. However, merely monitoring and tracking to understand the depth and breadth of partnerships is a limitation. Literature indicates that most partnership evaluations tend to focus only on one aspect of partnerships, which fails to present a comprehensive story of partnership operations and collective effects (Gomez-Bonnet & Thomas, 2015). To create a holistic understanding of partnership engagement, OPPR has embarked upon a systematic inquiry. Guided by the first principle of evaluation professional practice (American Evaluation Association, n.d.), this evaluation involves thorough, methodical, and contextual data-driven synthesis and social network analysis. Multiple social network analysis studies have emphasized how measurement of partnership characteristics can be useful in predicting partnership collaboration and effectiveness, OPPR is exploring use of social network analysis to assess their partner engagement. Studies suggest that network metrics such as degree, density, and centralization can describe associations among people and organizations (Scholz, et al., 2008). This session will describe internal evaluation approaches and methods in synthesizing available data and crafting social network analysis to better align priorities and strategies with partners to maximize mutual benefit. This session is relevant for those who work with partners and want to understand how analyzing and synthesizing their partner engagement data and conducting social network analysis can support sustainable and successful partnership endeavors. References Price, A. W., Brown, K. K. & Wolfe, S. M. (2020). Evaluating Community Coalitions and Collaboratives. In S. M. Wolfe, A. M. Price, & K. K. Brown (Eds.), New Directions for Evaluation 165, 9–16. Hardy, B., Hudson, B., & Waddington, E. (2003). Assessing strategic partnership: The partnership assessment tool. Retrieved from https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPlanning/partnering/cpc/Documents/AssessingStrategicPartnership.pdf Gomez-Bonnet, F. & Thomas, M. (2015). A three-way approach to evaluating partnerships Partnership survey, integration measure and social network analysis. Evaluation Journal of Australasia. 15(1), 28–37. Guiding Principles for Evaluators. (n.d.). American Evaluation Association. https://www.eval.org/About/Guiding-Principles Schoen, M.W., Moreland-Russell, S., & Bobbi, J.P. (2014). Social network analysis of public health programs to measure partnership. Social Science & Medicine. 123, 90-95.