NEW YORK, NY (November 4, 2022)—CAI research and social scientists, trainers, and technical support specialists will be sharing findings from recent national and regional initiatives at two upcoming conferences.
This month, CAI staff will lead four sessions at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) Conference, which brings 1,500 evaluators, researchers, and other professionals to New Orleans to learn about the latest advancements in evaluation theories, frameworks, methods, and tools.
CAI will deliver four presentations related to the AEA conference theme, Re-Shaping Evaluation Together:
- “Addressing Tobacco Use through Community-led Social Norm Change to Create and Empower a Healthier Jackson, MS,” will describe the methods to be used in a CDC-funded five-year research study of CAI’s Black People Against Tobacco (Project BAT), which is now in its first year.
- “Zooming in for Context: Applications of Geospatial Mapping Tools to Visualize Data, Evaluate, and Provide Capacity-Building for Two Public Health Initiatives,” will describe how Project BAT and the Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes Project leveraged geospatial mapping tools and employed best practices to enhance capacity-building and education efforts, engage stakeholders, and inform program improvements.
- “Shifting Power to Youth: Learning to Trust Youth Capabilities and Move from Engagement to Empowerment in Evaluation,” will explore how HOPE Buffalo, a community-led movement to reduce teen pregnancy and STI rates, successfully involved youth in project evaluation efforts.
- “Buffalo’s Breastfeeding Sisters: Revealing and Uplifting the Voice of Black Women to Co-Design, Deliver, and Evaluate a Racially Equitable Breastfeeding Peer Program,” will show how the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health project worked with Black women in Buffalo, NY, to support their breastfeeding experience.
In December, CAI will hold five poster sessions at the 15th Annual Dissemination & Implementation Conference. Presenters from four CAI projects—New Jersey HIV Trauma-Informed Care, Project BAT, Rapid ART – DAP, and Technical Assistance Provider-innovation network (TAP-in)—will discuss recent work that utilizes implementation science frameworks and approaches and illustrates the conference theme, (Re)Building Better Systems: Being Proactive, Nimble, and Responsive.
“Evaluation is an important component of every CAI project, because it ensures that our work integrates innovative new approaches, reflects best practices, and is highly effective,” said Lindsay Senter, CAI Vice President of Research and Evaluation and workshop presenter. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to share what we’re learning and the ways that evaluation is improving our services and the outcomes of organizations we partner with.”