The Project Officer of the Future program at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) was awarded this year’s prestigious James Virgil Peavy Workforce Development Award. The Project Officer of the Future program focuses on understanding and responding to the specific learning and development needs of project officers, public health program specialists who support the work of state, local and territory public health agencies. CDC makes this award once a year to recognize the work of individuals or teams who promote public health workforce learning and development.

Concept Systems Inc. has been involved with the initiative since its inception in 2002, performing the key functions of training and performance needs analysis, research and data aggregation. CSI is also the primary contractor for all instructional design for Project Officer of the Future courses, and evaluation of the program. CSI has developed three courses so far, including: Understanding Your Partner’s Context and Being a Program Champion; Consulting, Leadership and Resource Linkage for Effective Partnerships and Sustainable Programs; and CDC Stewardship: Navigating Partners through Cooperative Agreements. CSI is also looking forward to rolling out the following two remaining courses over the next year: Getting to Results: Planning, Implementation & Evaluation and The Art and Science of Public Health: Perspectives, Theory & Practice.

Bud Nicola, MD:
Bud is a Senior Consultant and CDC assignee to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Turning Point National Program Office, has practiced public health at the local and federal level for 26 years. His past experience includes directing the Division of Public Health Systems at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Seattle King County Health Department, and the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department. He is an Affiliate Associate Professor with the Department of Health Services. His interests include the improvement of the public health system, the use of information technology in public health, and the mobilization of communities to action on health issues.

Bud's Research:
Academic Alliance for Disease Detection in Asia-Pacific
CSI software was used for a project called “Academic Alliance for Disease Detection in Asia-Pacific.” The principal aim of this project is to build laboratory and epidemiologic capacity including effective organizational infrastructure to support Emerging Infectious Disease surveillance and response in selected countries of the Asia-Pacific region in partnership with academic centers and others throughout the Pacific Rim.

The Focus Statement used in the project was: “A specific action that universities and foundations working together can do or should do to support global disease detection is...” Ratings of importance and feasibility were used. Demographic information collected on participants included institutional affiliation, geographic location, years working, and major focus of work.

The brainstorming was done by a group of 29 public health practitioners and academicians from the U.S. and Pacific Island jurisdictions. I then facilitated several planning meetings of a subset of the brainstorm group during which I presented the sorting, rating, and analysis. This entire planning process took place over an eight-month period. The CSI software helped us meet our goals by focusing the group on the most important (and feasible) areas for action and by giving us planning data for future funding. CSI’s technical support was particularly helpful in thinking through the nuances of the Focus Statement.

Office of Cancer Survivorship
Concept Systems Inc. (CSI) has collaborated on several projects with Dr. Jon Kerner, Deputy Director of Research Dissemination and Diffusion, and Cynthia Vinson, Dissemination and Diffusion Coordinator, in the Office of Dissemination and Diffusion at the National Cancer Institute. Through this work, CSI was introduced to several other vital public health agencies, including the Office of Cancer Survivorship (OCS) at the National Cancer Institute.

CSI is currently working with the OCS to learn about how research on cancer survivorship might be better integrated and coordinated across the Institute. OCS asked 270 NCI colleagues to respond to the focus prompt: “One specific aspect of the work that I am doing, or would like to do, that relates to cancer survivorship is…”

The Concept Mapping methodology is uniquely suited to building awareness and consensus on this important topic, because it is multifaceted and multi-disciplinary. Cancer biology scientists, social and behavioral scientists, and epidemiologists must create a common vocabulary and understand one another’s priorities if they are to work together on this issue.

Because these groups typically belong to different research spheres with different cultures and ways of viewing their work, this can be a challenging task. With its mix of individual input and group interpretation of results, the Concept Mapping methodology is making it possible different types of cancer researchers to contribute their unique perspective, and still create a shared understanding of the issues. This makes strategic planning and priority setting possible.

The ability to participate in the process online, without a series of meetings, made the process efficient and doable.

The OCS project team is currently reviewing the concept map and discussing new ways to approach their work, to allow for more interdisciplinary collaborations across the Institute. The staff is hopeful that these collaborations will help them accelerate the pace of discovery, development, and delivery of interventions and support that cancer survivors need most.

Mary Kane, in collaboration with other authors, has published a peer-reviewed article in CDC’s journal “Preventing Chronic Disease”. The article is based on a recent concept mapping project and discusses the role that state public health agencies have in addressing less prevalent chronic conditions. The full text of the article is available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2005/jul/04_0129.htm

The Journal of the National Medical Association recently printed an article outlining the results of a concept-mapping project. The project identified barriers to racial/ethnic minority application and competition for NIH research funding. The full text of the article is available at:
http://www.nmanet.org/JMNA_Journal_Articles/August-05_JNMA/OC1063.pdf

Earlier this year, William M. K. Trochim and Mary Kane had their work published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care. The article outlines the basic steps and analysis sequence in the concept mapping method and presents a brief example of results from a recent public health planning project. The full text of the article is available at:
http://conceptsystems.com/papers/publications/Structured%20Conceptualization%20in%20Health%20Care.pdf

William M. K. Trochim and Derek Cabrera authored an article for “Emergence”. The article introduces concept mapping is a participatory mixed methodology and discusses how it is currently used in policy analysis and management contexts. The full text of the article is available at: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/research/The_Complexity_of_Concept_Mapping.pdf