Belonging to Something Greater Than Self: Flint Women Giving Back to the Community.

BACKGROUND: Having meaning in life promotes happiness and well-being across the lifespan. METHODS: A community-based participatory qualitative study was conducted to understand meaning in life, having a voice and the different ways women give back to their community by serving others. Interviews were held with participants (n = 100) who were community residents, people serving women, or both. RESULTS: Participants defined meaning in life as having a sense of significance, a deep connection to their community, and a sense of acknowledgement for their overall contributions. They emphasized the importance of opportunities for women to contribute to something greater than themselves. Participants suggested organizations would be responsive to the needs of women when women have a stronger voice. CONCLUSIONS: Women served their community in many roles. However, despite some societal progress, women continue to be underpaid and their contributions undervalued. Rectifying these inequities might contribute to better addressing the needs of women.

Integrating Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis to Assess Community-Academic Partnerships.

BACKGROUND: Community-academic partnerships (CAPs) in public health are increasingly utilized to integrate community voice into decision-making processes of health-related interventions, programs, and practice. However, community partners' collaboration experiences remain understated in the literature. Thus, there is a need to further advance methodological approaches that examine the effectiveness of CAPs, while also highlighting community voice to, ultimately, improve public health outcomes. OBJECTIVES: (1) To demonstrate how a practical approach to mixed methods social network analysis (MMSNA) can highlight power dynamics in community health partnerships and use MMSNA data to build relationships across stake-holders for systems change effortsMethods: MMSNA was used to examine a CAP focused on public health equity in a Midwest region. The project applied a sequential mixed methods design (QUAN → QUAL) with a network survey and individual semi-structured interviews. Both data strands served the function of expansion, where quantitative data identified what relationships existed in the network, level of activity, and factors for motivations, providing breadth of collaboration. Qualitative data further elaborated on how partners perceived these experiences, providing depth and contextualizing quantitative results. CONCLUSIONS: Systems level approaches must be applied to capture broader contexts (e.g., community, interpersonal, and individual) surrounding community health partnerships. The use of MMSNA maximizes benefits from a systems methodology-social network analysis-with qualitative interviews that allow for the critical assessment of network structure and community centered perspectives. Community health partnerships are encouraged to utilize this approach in order to deliver more sustainable public health efforts centered on the community that is directly impacted.

Community-based implementation strategy use and satisfaction: A mixed-methods approach to using the ERIC compilation for organizations serving children on the autism spectrum.

Background: Despite efforts to use standardized taxonomy and research reporting, documenting implementation strategies utilized in community settings remains challenging. This case study demonstrates a practical approach to gather use of and satisfaction with implementation strategies utilized within community-based sites to understand community providers' perspectives of implementing an early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children on the autism spectrum across different settings. Methods: Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, survey and interview data were collected from directors/supervisors and direct providers (n = 26) across three sites (one university and two community-based replication sites). The Implementation Strategies and Satisfaction Survey (ISSS) was administered to identify staff-reported implementation strategy use and satisfaction. Informed by quantitative results, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subsample (n = 13) to further understand staff experiences with endorsed implementation strategies and elicit recommendations for future efforts. Results: Survey results were used to demonstrate frequencies of implementation strategies endorsed by site and role. Overall, staff felt satisfied with implementation strategies used within their agencies. Content analysis of qualitative data revealed three salient themes related to implementation strategy use-context, communication, and successes and challenges-providing in-depth detail on how strategies were utilized, and strategy effectiveness based on community providers' experiences. Recommendations were also elicited to improve strategy use within "broader" community settings. Conclusions: The project demonstrated a practical approach to identifying and evaluating implementation strategies used within sites delivering autism services. Reporting implementation strategies using the ISSS can provide insight into community providers' perspectives and satisfaction with agency implementation strategy use that can generate more relevant and responsive strategies to address barriers in community settings. Plain language abstract Examining community providers' preferences and experiences with implementation strategies used to facilitate evidence-based practice uptake can broaden our understanding of what, how, and why implementation strategies work in community-based settings ( Chaudoir et al., 2013; Leeman et al., 2017; Proctor et al., 2013). Such efforts have great potential to tailor implementation strategies to address barriers/facilitators typically found in community-based settings.This case study demonstrates a practical approach using mixed methodology to: (a) gather self-reported use of and satisfaction with implementation strategies to understand community providers' perspectives of implementation strategy success. Using a new survey, the Implementation Strategies and Satisfaction Survey (ISSS) conjoined with interviews, the study demonstrated a practical approach using standardized language to report strategies used in one university-based site and two community-based replication sites that deliver an early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children on the autism spectrum. This paper contributes to one of the five priorities to enhance public health impact-improve tracking and reporting of implementation strategies utilized when translating research into practice ( Dingfelder & Mandell, 2011; Powell et al., 2019; Stahmer et al., 2019). This approach emphasizes the importance of understanding context (e.g., community organizations providing services to children on the autism spectrum) to develop strategies that work better for EIBI implementation and scale-up. Understanding community provider's preferences and experiences with implementation strategies can support use of implementation strategies that better fit usual care contexts, with the ultimate goal of improving implementation practice in community-based settings.