National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

Hi Marc,

Great question! I'm sure this is one that other public health professionals have had as well.

I would like to point you to an earlier discussion thread on our forum where Donna Ciliska identified her "Top 5" databases to search for public health questions.

See: http://www.nccmt.ca/forum/en/topic/39/searching/2.html

I also would like to point you to a great tool available on Health-Evidence.ca's website, "Resources to Guide & Track Your Search". This tool identifies a number of databases to search for each level of the 6S Pyramid of evidence. It also allows you to track the number of results your receive.

Click here to check out this tool: http://health-evidence.ca/tools#tool_12

If other network members have additional tips/ideas - please feel free to share!

Kirsten

I use healthevidence.ca quite often. Much of the time it provides what I need but sometimes it doesn't have reviews/assessments of a specific topic I am looking for. So I proceed to searching the usual journal databases (which frustrates me and is not an efficient use of my time....I will confess that is partly due to my lack of librarian-like skills)

I realize Healthevidence is expanding its reviews daily, however are there any other "time efficient" databases of publications NCCMT can point me to? Most relevant would be databases that have full-text access link-outs are available....I know it's like i'm asking for a miracle but.....

Thank you.

Marc

Very helpful - thanks Sunita!

Hi Ross,

I wanted to share another resource in the Registry that might be helpful. The International Development Research Centre (IRDC) developed a knowledge translation guide, The Research Matters KT Toolkit: A Resource for Researchersl, which contains a section on Context Mapping (Section II: The Audience: The Context and the Contacts). Context mapping looks at the environment in which we work to better understand the people, influences and other forces (political, social, cultural, etc.) that have a bearing on how we work and what we are able to achieve within that context.

This section provides an overview of stakeholder analysis, force field analysis, and influence mapping (p. 55 – 62). I believe these mapping techniques look at both an organization’s internal and external environments. Within this section, there is also a listing of additional resources to check out (p. 57 – 58).

I did a quick check on some of these resources, and I thought these two were particularly helpful:

Hovland, H. (2005). Successful Communication: A Toolkit for Researchers and Civil Society Organizations. Available from: http://www.odi.org.uk/Rapid/Tools/Toolkits/Communication/Index.html

Schmeer, K. (1999). Guidelines for Conducting a Stakeholder Analysis. Bethesda, MD: Partnerships for Health Reform, Abt Associates Inc.

To see a summary statement on this resource, click here.

Hope that helps!
Sunita

Thanks Kirsten - the RNAO tool was helpful!

Any suggestions on tools for stakeholder mapping outside one's organization/agency? I've seen this called:

- sector mapping
- Force field analysis
- market share

Thanks,

Ross

Hi Ross,

Great questions! I can promote this new thread in our next DialoguePH weekly message so that other network members can log-in and respond.

Ross, I want to direct you to a discussion thread from last Spring that discussed tools that can be used for stakeholder mapping. The thread is available here: http://www.nccmt.ca/forum/en/topic/140/tool-for-assessing-stakeholder-perspectives/1.html

Thanks,

Kirsten

Some questions...

1) Does your Public Health Unit/Agency use a particular stakeholder mapping approach/tool/exercise?

2) How does your Public Health Unit/Agency assess whether partnering with X organization is worthwhile or not?

3) How do you Public Health Unit/Agency determine "partnership gaps?"

The Ontario Public Health Organizational Standards (Standard 5) have Ontario Health Units revisiting how/and who we partner with...

In the “continue what we started” discussion topic, one of the postings referred to a method called the “Partnership Synergy Framework”. The Partnership Synergy Framework considers two questions: 1) Is collaboration better than efforts by single agents in improving the capacity of communities to achieve health and health system goals? 2) What can be done to realize the full advantage of collaboration?

This framework can be used to assess the degree to which a partnership's collaborative process successfully combines its participants' perspectives, knowledge, and skills.

This could be a useful resource to consult before forming a partnership with other community groups.

This resource is available in the NCCMT registry: http://www.nccmt.ca/registry/view/eng/8.html

Are there are any other tools available for building partnerships? Feel free to share!

Thanks for starting this discussion topic. It’s great to be able to continue to share after a fireside chat.

I really enjoyed Dr. Bruner’s presentation last Friday and have since thought about how my regional health authority could implement a similar Physical Activity Pass program in our community.

I think a key component of this program is forming partnerships with local organizations that support physical activity (e.g., parks and recreation, YMCA, sport associations, etc.). We currently don’t have a partnership like this in place, but would be interested in forming one.

Is anyone aware of a resource to help guide us in forming partnerships with local organizations?

CHNET-Works! and NCCMT have partnered to host follow-up discussions for a selection of winter 2011 fireside chats.

We would like to continue the discussion from today’s fireside chat that focused on the Kingston Gets Active (KGA) “Community Physical Activity Pass” program presented by Dr. Brenda Bruner.

You are invited to use the discussion forum to:

• Post questions and comments that we didn’t get to today
• Share your own experiences
• Network with other participants interested in this topic
• Share latest evidence and other resources

To make a new post, you must first register and become a member of NCCMT’s DialoguePH network. To do this, click on "Join NCCMT" on the left hand navigation. Once your account has been activated, you can simply log-in and create a new post to this discussion topic.

Have feedback for us? Please contact Kirsten Sears (searsk@mcmaster.ca) to share your thoughts!

Kirsten