Current Projects

Bridging academic research and actual public health practice is the common thread of any Institute collaboration. Yet, the subject, scope and direction of each project varies greatly. Currently, our work can be grouped into four broad categories: Program Evaluation; Collaborative Research; Data Collection, Management & Analysis; Professional Education & Training. Select projects are outlined in detail in our Featured Programs section.

While future projects will likely build upon the skills and expertise already developed within these areas, new focus areas will be explored with enthusiasm and energy as they arise. Read on to learn more about our current experiences.

Program Evaluation

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Alcohol and Other Drugs Evaluation

Family Health Centers of San Diego received a San Diego County Health and Human Services agency-funded contract to provide outpatient alcohol and drug treatment to members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender population in San Diego. The IPH provides evaluation services for this contract, including creation of data collection forms, a project database and evaluation reports.

Hepatitis C Testing and Linkage to Care Demonstration Project Evaluation

Family Health Centers of San Diego received funding for a Hepatitis C Virus Testing and Linkage to Care Demonstration Project. The project includes screening and diagnostic testing, linkage to health care for vulnerable and underserved individuals living with, or at high risk for, hepatitis c infection and increasing internal capacity for the effective delivery of HCV services. The IPH provides evaluation services for this project including the creation of data collection forms; the designing of a project database and data collection systems; and the production of evaluation reports.

High Impact Prevention Evaluation

In 1997, Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) began providing HIV prevention services to injection drug users and their partners as part of a Center of Disease Control and Prevention demonstration project. The IPH was hired to provide evaluation services for that project, which resulted in an ongoing relationship between FHCSD and the IPH regarding evaluation of HIV prevention programs. Since that time, the funding for the project shifted to the County HIV, STD, and Hepatitis Branch of public health services and the IPH continues to provide direct evaluation assistance to FHCSD. Each quarter, the IPH provides data entry assistance, technical support, the analysis of data from the program database, aid in completing the quarterly progress reports and regular data cleaning support.

HIV Prevention and Treatment Evaluation Programs

The San Diego County HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch (HSHB) offers a myriad of HIV, STD, and Hepatitis Services in San Diego County under the Health and Human Services Agency, Public Health Services. In an ongoing relationship since 2006, the HSHB has hired the IPH to help determine standardized outcomes, update program forms to collect outcome information, create databases to collect program outcomes for all HHSB-funded HIV Education and Prevention providers in San Diego County, update the databases as needed, train providers in data entry, provide technical assistance to providers and HSHB staff, analyze program data to create program evaluation reports, provide data entry assistance, provide quality improvement advice, and provide input regarding the wording and measurement of program objectives.

Aside from the activities listed above, activities related to other HSHB contracts have included:

  1. A workshop to help providers learn how to measure program outcomes and decide what outcomes would be measured;
  2. A multi-faceted HIV partner services quality improvement project;
  3. A Minority AIDS Initiative partner services pilot project;
  4. A Test-and-Link-to-Care Initiative which involved new reports and data collection forms related to testing individuals for HIV and linking them into medical care;
  5. Analyzing data to produce evaluation reports from downloaded Office of AIDS data;
  6. Updating all evaluation efforts when services changed to a focus of serving HIV-Positive individuals;
  7. Presenting program findings to HSHB, the Office of AIDS, program providers and at the United States Conference on AIDS (2014); and
  8. Providing specialized evaluation activities for two HIV Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) projects aimed at HIV negative persons who are at high-risk of HIV infection. These projects patient navigation to clients to ensure they have access to PrEP and adhere to the PrEP regimen.

HIV Services for Alcohol & Drug Services Evaluation

With this contract, Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) provides HIV testing as well as HIV and STD education services to San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency-funded Alcohol and Drug Service programs in San Diego County.  FHCSD educates both clients and staff about HIV, STD and Tuberculosis prevention and treatment.  The IPH provides evaluation services for this project, namely creating all of the data collection forms, creating a project database and producing program evaluation reports.

HIV Workforce

Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) has been awarded an HRSA grant to implement a Practice Transformative Model (PTM) to build San Diego’s primary care capacity to provide HIV treatment and comprehensive care services. Under FHCSD’s proposed PTM, FHCSD will train up to 15 primary care providers and 70 primary care-based support staff (across FHCSD’s multi-site primary care system) to provide culturally-competent and quality HIV care. During this process, HIV care will be provided to patients at up to 12 new FHCSD clinic sites where HIV care was not previously provided.

The IPH has been hired to provide research services for this project. The aims of the local research efforts are to document the processes related to providing services at new clinics, and determine if the quality improvement activities produce improved patient satisfaction and outcomes (viral load suppression, ART prescription and adherence). In conducting the local research and evaluation efforts, the IPH will prepare and submit human subject’s documents, create data collection forms and surveys, analyze project data, produce evaluation reports, create quality improvement surveys and a database for the surveys, attend conferences, and aid in the dissemination of findings.

Homeless Indicators for Systems Improvement

The IPH is partnering with the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless (RTFH) to provide research and evaluation expertise to the development of a population-based homeless system-wide metrics and two public use homeless electronic dashboards (General Dashboard and Veteran Dashboard). To this end, IPH is designing a client-level process and outcomes metrics including a comprehensive pathway analysis with the assessment of the most common and successful pathways to permanent housing among specific sub-groups (veterans, chronically homeless, homeless families with children, and unaccompanied youth). Technical assistance may also be provided for ongoing data analysis projects as needed by the RTFH.

The Hospital Association of San Diego & Imperial Counties

The 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment responds to IRS regulatory requirements that private not-for-profit (tax-exempt) hospitals conduct a health needs assessment in the community once every three years. In May 2015, the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties (HASD&IC) contracted with the Institute for Public Health to provide assistance with the collaborative health needs assessment that was officially called the HASD&IC 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment (2016 CHNA). The objective of the 2016 CHNA was to identify and prioritize the most critical health-related needs in San Diego County based on feedback from health experts and leaders, community residents facing inequities, and through quantitative data analysis. The results of the 2016 CHNA will be used to inform and adapt hospital programs and strategies to better meet the health needs of San Diego County residents.

As part of their ongoing efforts to create stronger partnerships within San Diego communities, HASD&IC and the participating hospitals designed a collaborative follow-up process (Phase 2) to continue engagement with community partners and gather additional feedback on ways to improve the process.

In the Mix

Since 2002, Family Health Centers of San Diego has contracted with the IPH to evaluate their In the Mix project. Family Health Centers of San Diego is a community health center that provides caring, affordable, high quality healthcare and supportive services to everyone, with a special commitment to uninsured, low income, and medically underserved persons. In the Mix provides several interventions aimed at reducing HIV infection among young men who have sex with men of color. Interventions include HIV counseling and testing, personalized cognitive counseling, risk counseling/reduction services, outreach, educational/skill building groups, and community engagement.

Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Diego

In September 2012, the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties (HASD&IC) contracted with the IPH to conduct a collaborative community health needs assessment for San Diego County. The needs assessment was a collaboration with HASD&IC and seven local San Diego hospitals, and was officially called the HASD&IC 2013 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). Kaiser Permanente was among the representatives from the San Diego hospitals, and formed a collaborative group convened by HASD&IC called the CHNA Advisory Workgroup. The CHNA Advisory Group provided input throughout this process.

Following this collaborative process the IPH wrote the Final Report for Kaiser Foundation Hospital-San Diego, which can be found on the Kaiser Permanente Share website. This report is being augmented with additional information specific to Kaiser Permanente. IPH will continue to work with Kaiser on future reports.

Nexus Comprehensive Patient Navigation Program Evaluation

Family Health Centers of San Diego received funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in order to expand existing mental health and substance abuse services for young men who have sex with men. Key components include the use of patient navigators to link participants to a full range of services which will improve treatment and service adherence. The IPH provides evaluation services for this project including the creation of data collection forms; the designing of a project database and data collection systems; the production of evaluation reports; and the provision of aid to FHCSD for the transfer to electronic data to SAMSHA.

Primary Care Medical Home (PCMH) Connections for Multiply Diagnosed HIV+ San Diegans

Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) – one of the first federally qualified health centers in the United States to be recognized as a Primary Care Medical Home (PCMH), and People Assisting The Homeless (PATH) – one of the most innovative organizations serving the needs of homeless people on the West Coast, will pilot a model for supporting homeless and unstably housed HIV-positive San Diegans living with comorbid mental health and/or substance use disorders. A local evaluation will be conducted by the Institute for Public Health (IPH) at San Diego State University, which has long-served as an evaluator for many of FHCSD's HIV services programs.

Project Pride

On the heels of an HIV PrEP demonstration project with the HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch (HSHB) of Public Health Services at the County of San Diego, HSHB procured additional funding in 2016 in order to target PrEP services to transgendered clientele. HIV PrEP, or HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, is a biomedical HIV prevention method for people who are HIV-negative involving the use of daily anti-HIV medications. Family Health Centers of San Diego is one of the agencies funded by HSHB in order to implement a system in which high-risk person who test HIV negative are linked to biomedical interventions, such as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), to reduce the risk of HIV acquisition." The IPH was hired by FHCSD to evaluate this project. Evaluation duties encompass the modification of data collection forms, the modification of the existing data collection system, and the production of evaluation reports. In the first year the IPH will also conduct a needs assessment in order to aid in the tailoring of intervention activities.

Rise to Empower

Rise to Empower is conducting three pilot programs with the Juvenile Court and Community Schools. Rise to Empower's mission is "to empower girls and young women to make positive, conscious choices. Their program provides girls with "a transformational experience through critical thinking and experiential learning where they will be asked to take a deep look at their lives, the challenges they are faced with daily as teen girls and their relationship to choice." The IPH is conducting an evaluation of the program.

Sharp HealthCare 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment

Since 1995, Sharp has participated in a countywide collaborative — along with a broad range of hospitals, health care organizations and community agencies — to conduct a triennial Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) that identifies priority health needs for San Diego County. For its 2016 CHNA process, Sharp actively participated in a collaborative CHNA effort led by the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties (HASD&IC) and in contract with the Institute for Public Health (IPH) at San Diego State University. The process and findings of the collaborative, HASD&IC 2016 CHNA significantly informed the process and findings of Sharp's individual hospital CHNAs.

In addition, Sharp HealthCare contracted separately with the IPH to conduct hospital-specific analyses and community engagement activities expressly for the communities served by each of its hospitals in the development of individual hospital CHNAs.

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Diversity Training

The National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) is a full service alternative dispute resolution provider, based in San Diego, California since 1983. NCRC provides and promotes collaborative dispute resolution and conflict management to individuals, organizations, and society through education, training, and client services.

NCRC is providing a series of trainings on conflict resolution and communication (including intercultural communication) skills for UCSD student leaders. IPH is evaluating student trainings using a pre/post survey assessing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.

Collaborative Research

Community Engagement

The Clinical and Translational Research Institute (CTRI) at UC San Diego is contracting with Dr. Suzanne Lindsay, IPH Executive Director, to assist in their community engagement efforts as required by their 5 year grant from the CDC. CTRI advances scientific discovery to improve health – bringing discoveries from the lab to the bedside.

Established in 2010, the CTRI provides infrastructure and support for basic, translational, and clinical research throughout the San Diego region; expedites the translation of discoveries into therapies; and facilitates the training and education of the next generation of researchers.

Dr. McDaniels-Davidson will assist in various community engagement activities:

  • Provide expertise to promote and educate CTRI members and partner institutions on Implementation and Dissemination research through providing lectures, seminars and technical assistance.
  • CTRI provides grant support to Community-Academic partnerships. Dr. Lindsay will review grant proposal submissions and help in selecting awardees. She will also facilitate in introducing academic researchers to community members interested in participating in a research project.
  • An IPH staff member will serve as SDSU's ResearchMatch liaison in addition to advertising it's availability to SDSU researchers.

Data Collection, Management & Analysis

HealthDAT San Diego

Please see Featured Project Health DAT.

Healthy Dining: Restaurant Training Program

Healthy Dining is all about dining out as a delicious part of a person's healthy lifestyle —whether it is date night, family night with the kids, a business lunch, or when traveling for fun or work. The Restaurant Training Program is developing a set of online modules to help restaurants train their staff on the importance of menu labeling accuracy and preparing menu items according to the recipes upon which nutrition analyses are based. IPH will be facilitating focus groups for Healthy Dining to gather feedback from restaurant staff on the training modules.

Professional Education and Training

Pacific Emergency Management, Preparedness, and Response Information Network and Training Services (EMPRINTS) 2018

Funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness, and Response (ASPR), Pacific EMPRINTS has provided an extensive variety of online distance learning courses, podcasts, live training exercises, disaster life support training, instructional lectures, and a number of other workshops to health professionals and first responders in Hawaii and the Pacific region. The IPH has provided the technical aspect of the online training courses developing the web course management application since 2006 and creating HTML5 video. Go to Online Courses to take over 70 online courses on a variety of subjects, ranging from bioterrorism concerns such as Anthrax, Plague and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers, to emerging infectious diseases such as Avian Influenza at IPH website.

Last Updated: 7/26/2018