Data and Surveillance

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Data and Surveillance

Data collection, monitoring, analysis, and distribution are critical to program success. Discovering a wide range of data sources and systems at the national, state, and local levels can help support ACEs, suicide, and overdose programming and evaluation. The Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Prevention Capacity Assessment Tool (SPACECAT) can be used to summarize which surveillance data systems are being utilized in program areas and determine how data is being used to address the intersection of ACEs, suicide, and overdose. Below is a list of beginner, intermediate, and advanced actions your organization can take based on your SPACECAT results.

Beginner Action Ideas

  • Meet with epidemiologists and others who oversee statewide and local data sources to understand the current data landscape, methods used to track data, and opportunities for collaboration.
  • Determine baseline ACEs, suicide, and overdose data for your state. Stratify data by various demographic segments to develop a basic epidemiological assessment of rates and trends across these topics.
    • What might your next step be, based on the data?
  • Research data reports from national, state, and local organizations that focus on data and/or the prevention of ACEs, suicide, overdose, or shared risk and protective factors.
    • What type of surveillance system was used?
    • Do you have access to that system?
    • Example reports: National, State, and Local.
  • Explore the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and other data for your state.
    • What questions does your state collect around ACEs, suicide, overdose, or shared risk and protective factors?
    • Do those questions incorporate an equity lens?

Intermediate Action Ideas

  • Evaluate data sources. Determine if there are needs for new data sources and/or modifications to existing data sources.
    • Are the data timely?
    • Is equity centered in your data?
    • Are MOUs in place for data sharing? With whom?
    • Review state laws that support data analysis/sharing and ensure that staff understands relevant laws.
  • Use both qualitative and quantitative data to conduct an asset and needs assessment statewide or for a specific community for ACEs, suicide, overdose, or shared risk and protective factors.
  • Ensure that data are being used to understand and characterize ACEs, suicide, and overdoses.
    • Are data being viewed with a shared risk and protective factors lens? Are data being collected, analyzed, and shared equitably? Are data being tracked across all three programs? If not, how might they be? How might resources be shared to do that?
    • What does the data indicate regarding health equity?
    • Are there variables that show an intersection with ACEs, suicide, and overdoses?
    • If data are missing, how can your agency partner with programs collecting the needed data?
  • Identify one or two priority risk and protective factors shared across ACEs, suicide, and overdose, and begin researching evaluation indicators for those factors.
  • Explore existing data dashboards available within your state or jurisdiction.
    • Is this a data-sharing option for your program or organization?
    • Will the dashboard be created internally or externally? If external, will a contract be needed?
    • If appropriate, explore dashboard providers that can assist your organization with mechanisms for sharing data with a broader audience.
  • Create an evaluation plan to evaluate indicators for shared risk and protective factors across ACEs, suicide, and overdose.
    • Can you use one strategy that is evidence-based for a particular Injury Violence Prevention outcome (e.g., ACEs) and evaluate it for another Injury Violence Prevention outcome (e.g., suicide or overdose)?
    • Can this plan be used for grant proposals?
      - Research potential grant opportunities that support your organization or program’s evaluation plan for shared risk and protective factors.
  • Explore trainings on storytelling and framing data to learn how to present data in a way that is impactful to a wide variety of audiences.
  • Advocate for data with a health equity focus within your program and across your organization.

Advanced Action Ideas

  • Assess the possibility of faster data collection in current data systems. Examples include EMS, trauma, hospital, electronic health records, syndromic surveillance, and mortality systems.
  • Determine how the available data will support current ACEs, suicide, and overdose prevention programming.
    • Can the data be used for program assessment or evaluation?
    • In what ways might the equity lens be incorporated more fully?
  • Explore the option of using data to determine the return on investment for resource allocation for ACEs, suicide, and overdose programming. For example, consider asking whether funds are available to explore the intersection of shared risk and protective factors and ACEs, suicide, and overdose prevention.
  • Identify priority risk and protective factors shared across ACEs, suicide, and overdose; select evaluation indicators for those factors; and conduct evaluation activities to explore the effectiveness of your efforts.
  • Use qualitative and quantitative methods across all evaluation efforts.

Resources

Health Equity Questions to Consider