February 28, 2014
The National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID) is one of six National Collaborating Centres for Public Health funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The six centres form a network across Canada, each hosted by a different institution and focusing on a different topic in public health. NCCID is hosted by the International Centre for Infectious Diseases (ICID), located in Winnipeg.
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Knowledge That's Contagious
NCCID launches the Outreach Planning and Exchange Network (OPEN)
How do we know when our work actually has an impact? As those in the field of HIV/STBBI outreach well know, the question is a deceptively simple one. Yet a lot rides on the answer, not least because we all want to know whether our efforts truly reach everyone we want to reach, and to be confident that they’re growing healthier as a result. That’s why a growing number of outreach programs have turned to evaluation indicators, measurements they’ve devised to capture and convey the true impact of their work over time.
At the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, we’ve long understood the contribution that measurement and evaluation can make to an outreach program, whether it’s at the early planning stages or after many years in operation. After the first edition of our well-received Outreach Planning Guide came out in 2010, we hosted a cross-Canada series of workshops to consult with outreach workers on what else was needed. They identified three major gaps:
- a gap in knowledge as to which outreach programs in Canada took an evidence-informed approach
- a gap in knowledge as to what evaluation indicators those programs used
- a gap in opportunity to communicate/collaborate with their peers in other jurisdictions
Today, we’re pleased to share a new and exciting component of NCCID’s response to these gaps — the re-launch of our Outreach Planning and Exchange Network (OPEN). With its searchable set of outreach programs and indicators, OPEN now permits HIV/STBBI prevention workers and managers to quickly and conveniently share and compare indicators with their counterparts in other parts of the country. A complementary knowledge exchange forum is intended to facilitate the design and development of new and/or improved indicators.
We invite you to become a part of the Network. To add your program and indicator information to our databases, please visit the OPEN sign up page for a free account. Requests received during regular NCCID office hours will be responded to promptly.
As you ‘field-test’ this new version of OPEN, please do not hesitate to share your feedback, be it related to content, usability or any other aspect of the site. Contact Rick Harp, NCCID Project Manager, at either rharp@icid.com or 204-942-5339.
Coming Soon: March 10 Webinar from NCCID and NCCMT
Evidence-Informed Decisions and Knowledge Translation in Emerging Infections
March 10, 2014
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (CT)
Assessing evidence in public health and analysing its implications for practice can be described as a circular or spiralling cycle of exchange, investigation, analysis, synthesis, translation, and exchange, etc. It is ideally a systematic process to ensure decisions are informed by the best available evidence.
For an emerging infection such as the recent H7N9 Influenza or the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, however, data are often limited and changing, analysis is incomplete, synthesis is relatively more opinionated, translation is less consensus-based, and the needs for exchange on appropriate implementation are often more urgent. These conditions create challenges for knowledge users (e.g. public health decision makers) who may have to fill in gaps resulting from limited empirical evidence. This webinar will describe the processes the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases has undertaken to retrieve and assess evidence, in order to create knowledge translation products that can be used when decisions must be made in a very short time frame.
This webinar will be delivered by Dr. Joel Kettner, Scientific Director at the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Kettner has had a long career in public health, including his time as the Chief Public Health Officer in Manitoba for more than 10 years.
Register now for the webinar! (You can also copy and paste this link directly into your browser: http://ow.ly/ucflZ)
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Upcoming Conferences
The Ontario Public Health Convention
March 31 to April 2, 2014
Toronto, ON
Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada - CACMID
April 2 to 5, 2014
Victoria, BC
29th International Papillomavirus Conference and Clinical and Public Health Workshop
August 20-21, 2014 – Pre-Conference Clinical & Public Health Workshop
August 21-25, 2014 – Main Conference: Basic Science, Clinical, and Public Health Scientific Sessions
Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, Washington, USA
NCC Website Links
National Collaborating Centres for Public Health NCCPH
National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases NCCID
National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health NCCEH
National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health NCCAH
National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools NCCMT
National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy NCCHPP
National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health NCCDH
Visit the NCCID at www.nccid.ca .Follow us on Twitter. Connect with us on LinkedIn.
Any comments or suggestions? Email us at nccid@icid.com.
Production of this e-newsletter has been made possible through a financial contribution from the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Public Health Agency of Canada. |
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