Projects

Evaluation of Nutrition & Healthy Lifestyles Initiative

January 2021 - December 2022

We would begin the evaluation by taking time to deepen our collective understanding of the NHL program, through examining existing grant data and initiative frameworks as well as through investigating comparable initiatives in other states to identify best and promising practices related to the seven facets of NHL work: integrating school and community work related to nutrition and physical activity interventions, behavior change, health status change, intended vs. actual reach, sustainability, systems change impact, and community engagement. This research would be summarized in a phase one report and provide the basis for a more detailed phase two evaluation plan. Phase two would involve new data collection, including working with grantees to identify common measures on reach, health indicators, and behavioral change, conducting interviews to learn more about grantees’ and beneficiaries’ experiences with the grant projects, and capturing broader system-level impacts. Findings, including portfolio outputs, best and promising practices, and strategies for grantee community engagement, would be presented in multiple formats in order to ensure the information is available to multiple audiences.

MiCHWA PEG Funding

Funds transferred to PEG via Edie Kieffer's MiCHWA Discretionary account for PEG to complete evaluation work on sponsored project.

Program Evaluator for Title II Contracts

Altarum will guide Title II grantees through the process of developing their evaluation plans, with full plans ready for submission to MDHHS within 14 days of their grant start date. Documenting and operationally defining the program and evaluation goals, specific activities, and their timing and hypothesized outcomes are of paramount importance. The well-crafted evaluations will yield data relevant and necessary to document accomplishments, identify areas for improvement, and enhance sustainability and scalability moving forward. If possible, given Covid-19 realities, Altarum’s Project Manager (PM), Rachelle May-Gentile, Evaluation Lead, Dr. Christine Stanik; and Juvenile Justice Subject Matter Expert, Lisa Greco will meet with each grantee in person at the time of their start dates. If in-person visits are not advisable, they will host video meetings using Microsoft Teams or Zoom to interact face-to-face with grantee staff. Dr. Stanik is currently hosting remote discussions for a similar project with six grantees, and the protocol has been highly successful. During initial meetings, Dr. Stanik and Ms. Greco will facilitate information gathering discussions with grantee staff to acclimate to the grantee programs, including program background and context, goals and objectives, target audience, key activities, and desired short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes. They will walk grantee staff through each component of the evaluation plan, designing and assist grantees as they begin to develop their plans. Altarum will document these planning meetings and provide detailed notes to the grantees capturing all decision points and action items. Through these meetings, the Altarum Team will develop the following specific evaluation plan components: Logic Model, Evaluation Goals and Objectives, Evaluation Research Questions, Evaluation Design, Process and Outcome Performance Measures, Data Collection Sources, Tools, and Methods, Data Reporting, Data Analysis, and Evaluation Report and Other Products.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH EDUCATION AND RESEARCH CENTERS (T42)

October 2018 - June 2023

The University of Michigan Center for Occupational Health and Safety Engineering (COHSE), a NIOSH Education and Research Center (ERC), has been continuously funded by NIOSH since its establishment in 1982. Our Center has a distinguished legacy, building on NIOSH Trainee Program grants in the early 1970s, the Institute of Industrial Health founded in 1951, and may other milestones dating back to the establishment of the Laboratory of Hygiene in 1888. The mission of the Center is to serve the region, nation and world as a center of excellence for graduate education and research in occupational health and safety. We maintain outstanding Master’s, doctoral and research programs in Industrial Hygiene, Occupational Health Nursing, Occupational Safety Engineering and Ergonomics, and Occupational Epidemiology. Our academic and research programs provide broad-based interdisciplinary academic training to ensure that graduates are qualified to pursue careers and assume leadership roles in the practice of occupational health and safety, and to help ensure an adequate supply of well-trained researchers. Complementing the academic programs, our suite of Research-to-Practice projects, Continuing Education programs, and Outreach activities are aimed at transferring state-of-the-art knowledge to professionals and practitioners in occupational health and safety and allied disciplines. As a NIOSH Education and Research Center, we serve a number of constituencies, including: (1) NIOSH; (2) industry, labor and professional interests in our region and beyond; (3) academic units within the University of Michigan that provide critical teaching and research resources necessary for Center success; and (4) our students. The broad goals of the Center are to: • Promote excellence in our professional training and research training programs in each core program; • Increase the financial resources needed to improve the number, quality and diversity of graduate students in each core area; • Enhance the quality of our continuing education courses and other service and outreach activities; • Increase external research funding to improve our research infrastructure, expand opportunities for research training, and promote interdisciplinary research related to occupational health and safety; • Provide an organizational structure to coordinate and promote interdisciplinary educational activities for all core programs; • Promote awareness and education of occupational health and safety in undergraduate and graduate courses in other departments and schools; • Utilize a variety of research-to-practice (R2P) mechanisms, including our Visiting Partners Program, to develop skills and capabilities of mid-career occupational health and safety professionals; and • Assist Center programs and affiliated academic units in recruiting, promoting and retaining faculty