A multilevel approach to improving quality of care and health outcomes in undeserved breast cancer patients
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) serves as the program evaluator for the Cambridge Health Alliance's (CHA) two-year Avon Foundation grant. This grant seeks to improve breast cancer diagnosis and treatment services for patients at the Alliance, with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes. Through collaboration with CHA's Cambridge Breast Center, ICH supports program data monitoring and tracking of patients' experiences with services.

Active Living by Design Somerville
In 2003, Somerville, Massachusetts received a 5-year Active Living by Design grant to promote physical activity through partnership and planning. In 2007, The Institute for Community Health (ICH) undertook a 2-year case study to identify active living efforts and their impact on Somerville in terms of programs, physical projects, policy changes, and physical activity behavior of residents. This case study will collect data using surveys, interviews with key informants, and a number of environmental observation methods, including GIS mapping and photo/video documentation.

Advanced Practice Center for Emergency Preparedness Evaluation
In 2004, the Institute for Community Health (ICH) was contracted to conduct an evaluation of the Cambridge Public Health Department, Advanced Practice Center (APC) for Emergency Preparedness. The APC is a resource for both the City of Cambridge and twenty-six (26) other communities surrounding Boston. The goal of the program is to develop plans and build local and regional capacity for responding to public health emergencies, including bioterrorism.

Agenda For Children
Agenda for Children works in Cambridge to promote the Literacy Initiative, Let's Talk, for families with children 0-8 years of age. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has conducted an ongoing evaluation of their Let's Talk Campaign since 2004.

Asian American Students Study
The Institute for Community Health (ICH), in partnership with Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and Harvard affiliated clinicians, is leading a study to identify risk factors associated with (and unique to) depression, specific to Cambridge middle and high school Asian students.

Cambridge Men's Health League
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is working with the Margaret Fuller House, the Cambridge Public Health Department and the Cambridge YMCA to evaluate a men's health program. This program seeks to improve the health of men of color in Cambridge by specifically reducing the risks for diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Cambridge Physical Education Program (PEP) Evaluation
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has been working with the Cambridge Public School Department to conduct an evaluation of the Carol M. White Physical Education for Progress (PEP) grant. The PEP grant has provided enhanced nutrition and physical education opportunities for 4th-8th grade students, both during and before/after school. The evaluation incorporates a range of data including surveys with students, teachers, and food service staff; collection of height, weight, and fitness data for each child; and interviews with key staff and department heads.

Coordinating Care for Political Violence Survivors
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) provides evaluation support to the Cambridge Health Alliance's (CHA) Coordinating Care for Political Violence Survivors program. Evaluation components include assistance in tracking project progress, evaluation of provider trainings, and monitoring of clinical indicators of patients enrolled in the program.

Cost-effectiveness of Language Services
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has chosen The Institute for Community Health (ICH) and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) to develop a cost-effectiveness model that will estimate the impact of interpreter services on clinical practice and outcomes. This formative research project seeks to answer the question “How should cost-effectiveness research in language services be structured and conducted?” In partnership with the Institute for Technology Assessment (ITA) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) a model will be developed of cost-effectiveness for language services informed by interviews with patients and staff, as well as relevant clinical outcomes in the ambulatory clinics of CHA.

Developmental Differences in Risk and Resiliency Factors for Adolescent Suicide Attempts
Developmental differences that might impact suicide risk and resiliency in adolescents are not well understood. The aim of this project is to determine whether the risk and resiliency factors for suicide attempts change through the life-course and are consistent with developmental phases. The project will identify risk factors for suicide attempts that are age specific and determine if changing risk factors from one developmental period to another increases or decreases the likelihood of an attempted suicide.

ELLD Database Management
This project focuses on database management which includes identifying data discrepancies, identifying systemic problems with the database, data cleaning, and assisting with the production of regularly scheduled standard reports from the database. The database is a web-based application for the City of Cambridge to track multiple agencies efforts to promote early literacy

Everett Community Health Partnership- Substance Abuse Coalition (ECHP-SAC)
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is providing Everett Community Health Partnership-Substance Abuse Coalition (ECHP-SAC) with support on the SAMHSA Drug Free Community grant evaluation. The Substance Abuse Coalition of the Everett Community Health Improvement Partnership seeks to develop a continuum of activities to better understand and address the changing needs of the Everett community. In addition to overall coalition evaluation, this project includes evaluation of a science-based curriculum for middle school youth, a youth development group, and youth-in-action activities. This evaluation plan includes data collection through pre/post surveys, focus groups, member and event tracking, and on line surveys. The ICH team additionally supports the coalition's efforts through technical assistance, training and grant support.

Everett Empowering Youth in our Communities (EYC) program
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has been working with the Cambridge Health Alliance's (CHA) Department of Community Affairs to design and implement the Empowering Youth in Our Communities program evaluation since 2006. ICH is responsible for process and outcome evaluation, compliance with Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol and submissions, assistance in data collection and data analysis, and reporting on evaluation findings.

Everett Physical Education Program (PEP)
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has been working with the Everett Public School Department to conduct an evaluation of the Carol M. White Physical Education for Progress (PEP) grant. During the early stages of the PEP grant, ICH has been involved in developing an evaluation plan and providing technical assistance on the collection of height, weight and fitness data for all students in 4th-8th grade. Additionally, ICH has helped to collect baseline information from teachers and school department staff through the use of surveys and interviews with key school and community staff. The goal of the Everett PEP program is to provide enhanced nutrition and physical education opportunities, both during and before/after school.

Five-City Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey
Through a collaboration with five local communities (Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Revere and Somerville), The Institute for Community Health (ICH) facilitated the planning, design, and implementation of a community-level Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). Usually conducted at the federal or state level, the BRFSS is often difficult to coordinate and fund at a community level. Through a process involving many community partners at a number of working group meetings, the survey was developed and administered in all five communities. Data will be used to inform local health needs and better cater programs and policies to meet those needs.

Foster Care: The Consequences of Abuse and Neglect
Youth in foster care are primary stakeholders in local child welfare systems. Little effort has been made to incorporate their views into ongoing efforts to evaluate and address existing gaps in care. This qualitative study focuses on the experiences of young adolescents, ages 16 to 18, in out-of-home placements.

Franklin County Regional County of Governments Evaluation Tools
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) provided evaluation and technical assistance to the Franklin County Regional County of Governments in Western Massachusetts. Through this partnership, ICH worked with program staff to develop evaluation tools for a personal emergency preparedness training module for at-risk populations and service provider agency staff who provide care and assistance to these populations.

Girl Talk
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) provided evaluation and technical assistance to the Girl Talk Program of the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center in Boston, MA. Through this partnership, ICH worked with program staff to document their program theory using a logic model and revised their evaluation plan and instruments based on this model.

Growing Healthy Collaborative
Growing Healthy, a farm-to school-to home project, is a six-organization collaborative serving Cambridge and Somerville. The overarching goals are to support local agriculture and to help meet the nutritional needs of low-income public school children. The programming consists of a Farm to Cafeteria Project where business relationships between farms and schools are established, school meal quality is improved, and student awareness of local farms is increased; a School Gardening Project that focuses on increasing student and family awareness of food production; and a project focusing on Promotion of Local Food Purchases by hosting events at local farmers' markets.

Harvard's Clinical Translational Science Center (Harvard Catalyst)
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is working with Harvard University to implement the Community Engagement Core of Harvard's Clinical Translational Science Center, also known as Harvard Catalyst. The Catalyst supports research that directs innovations from the clinical arena to improve health of local communities. Guided by community based participatory research (CBPR) principles, Harvard researchers, with ICH, will engage community partners in a process of developing solutions to the complex issues that impact health and health policy. Opportunities for funding of research projects are available through Catalyst.

Health Assessments
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) assists communities in the analysis and development of community-specific comprehensive health reports. These reports cover, but are not limited to, basic demographics, leading causes of mortality and morbidity, mental health, youth-focus areas of concern, and identifying disparities. Health Reports have been developed for Cambridge, Somerville, and Everett (in progress).

Healthy Children Task Force
The Healthy Children Task Force (HCTF) is a community-based coalition devoted to promoting children’s health in the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts by providing an avenue for individuals and diverse agencies to take action. For over a decade, the HCTF has been bringing together academia, community organizations, city agencies, and the health care community to identify children’s health issues and to mobilize individuals to pursue them further through programmatic research and policy action. The Healthy Children Task Force has made an impact in the areas of mental health, school food service, physical activity and healthy eating promotion, dental health, asthma, literacy, immunizations, and more.

Healthy Tomorrows Project
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) was awarded the Healthy Tomorrows project to respond to community concern about children's mental health. This project introduced mental health screening to two (2) pediatric practices and also provided co-located social work services at those sites. Additionally, we followed over 5,000 children who were screened at these sites.

Institute for Community Health Education Program
The purpose of The Institute for Community Health (ICH) education program is to further practice-based public health training and to increase community research capacity by supporting the Institute's projects and partners. We recruit students from local universities to engage in short- and long-term service learning projects with our staff and our community partners. We focus on learning through practice and support this by connecting students to our staff and resources.

Integrated Comprehensive Care for Children (IC3)
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) was awarded this grant to work with the communities of Cambridge and Somerville on designing a model of care that integrates mental health and substance abuse services, with physical health care for children, adolescents and their families. This is done through project management and evaluation.

Malden Needs Assessment
This is a 3 year project to conduct a needs assessment of the health of the Chinese, Vietnamese, and South Asian populations in Malden. This needs assessment is guided by an appreciative inquiry approach. We will conduct a series of key stakeholder interviews, a population survey and a focus group to triangulate our findings. Results will be written up in a final report and shared with the study participants.

Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium (MFLC)
The Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium (MFLC) Pathways to Family Success Program is active in four (4) communities in Massachusetts providing wrap-around services to support family literacy. ICH is working with the Cambridge program developing a comprehensive database for program information and conducting the program evaluation.

Parent/Partner Advocacy League
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) was engaged by the Parent Advocacy League to survey parents of children on psychopharmacology to understand their experiences.

Partners in Prevention Evaluation
The Partners in Prevention Evaluation is evaluating capacity building to increase implementation, adoption and evaluation of science-based approaches in teen pregnancy prevention. Partnering with the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, this project aims to meet federal evaluation requirements while producing useful and community-friendly evaluation reports which capture the local Massachusetts context. The target populations for this project are Massachusetts community-based organizations and coalitions offering programs in teen pregnancy prevention to teens and the broader youth-serving community.

Partnership for Effective Emergency Response (PEER)
The Partnership for Effective Emergency Response is a multi-disciplinary initiative crossing three emergency preparedness regions (4a, 4b and 4c) and five health care disciplines with the ultimate goal of enhancing the communication capacities of all stakeholders. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is contracted to evaluate this partnership.

Phoenix Rising
Phoenix Rising is a trauma-informed prevention intervention designed to reduce the progression of substance abuse, HIV and Hepatitis infections among homeless young adults. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is working in partnership with the Youth on Fire program of Cambridge Cares About AIDS to evaluate this intervention.

Prevention Against Violent Experiences (PAVE)
Prevention Against Violent Experiences (PAVE) is designed to reduce domestic violence and the harm caused by the violence by identifying victims in the Cambridge Health Alliance's Women's Health Centers. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is responsible for coordinating the efforts of the Cambridge Health Alliance's (CHA) Department of Community Affairs, Victims of Violence program, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in order to implement PAVE. Program components include the design and installation of an Authorware-based computerized screening tool, staff trainings on domestic violence, and advocate follow-up with those patients identified as having experienced domestic violence. ICH is also responsible for conducting process and outcome evaluation for the project.

Project Reach
Project Reach provides trauma-informed mental health assessments for survivors of human trafficking and training for service providers who work with them. The purpose of the evaluation is to gather feedback from frontline case workers, lawyers, and law enforcement agents to assess the perceived value of grant-funded services, identify challenges or barriers to accessing these services, and obtain recommendations for how to improve services to meet the needs of human trafficking victims and the professionals who work with them.

Race and Ethnicity Data Collection Technical Assistance
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Center for Community Health Research and Service (CCHERS) to provide training and technical support to hospitals, health centers, and community-based organizations in Massachusetts on the collection of patient/participant self-identified race, ethnicity, and language. Based on experience with training at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), ICH is creating user-friendly training materials and data collection tools for training participants and will facilitate the sharing of materials and information through development of a "community of practice."

Regionalization of Public Health Systems
This is a case-study evaluation of the efforts of two states -- Massachusetts and Kansas -- undergoing a strategic planning process to regionalize local public health services. The evaluation is funded by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and is being conducted in collaboration with local leaders in each state.

Shape Up Somerville Task Force
The Shape Up Somerville Taskforce is a city-wide campaign to increase daily physical activity and healthy eating through programming, physical infrastructure improvements, and policy work-targeting all people who live, work and play in Somerville. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) plays an active role in this community collaborative by offering evaluation and data collection assistance, and by sharing and disseminating critical community health information in digestible language.

Somerville Cares About Prevention (SCAP)
In 2004, The Institute for Community Health (ICH) began working with Somerville Cares About Prevention (SCAP) to evaluate several components of their coalition's substance abuse prevention work. In addition to overall coalition evaluation, this project includes a science-base curriculum for middle school parents, a youth development group, and youth-in-action activities. This evaluation plan includes data collection through pre/post surveys, focus groups, member and event tracking, and on-line surveys. The ICH team additionally supports the coalition's efforts through technical assistance, training and grant support.

Somerville Physical Education Program (PEP) Evaluation
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has been working with the Somerville Public School Department to conduct an evaluation of the Carol M. White Physical Education for Progress (PEP) grant. The PEP grant has provided enhanced nutrition and physical education opportunities for 4th-8th grade students, both during and before/after school. The evaluation incorporates a range of data including surveys with students, teachers, and food service staff; collection of height, weight, and fitness data for each child; and interviews with key staff and department heads.

Speaking Together
Speaking Together is a national program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is one of ten (1 of 10) hospitals in the program and The Institute for Community Health (ICH) staff are serving to coordinate the project. The focus of Speaking Together is to improve the quality of language services for our patients, test new performance measures, and find new solutions to reduce language barriers.

Suicide and Overdose in Somerville
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) has worked with Somerville Health Department to monitor suicide and overdose activity in 10-24 year olds.

The Family Center Outcomes and Data Systems Development
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is working with The Family Center (TFC) to develop outcome measures for family support and clinical programs. Additionally, we are developing and implementing data systems that supports these measures and training staff to work with these systems.

Three City Substance Abuse Collaborative
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is serving as the evaluator for the Three City Substance Abuse Collaborative's current efforts to decrease substance abuse among youth and adults by addressing priority risk factors and enhancing protective factors in Cambridge, Everett and Somerville. ICH is working with the Collaborative to develop ways to track their work and to evaluate to what extent the program achieved its goals.

Violence and Immigrants
Prevalence of violence against women may differ for women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. The goal of this project is to assess the prevalence of interpersonal violence among US and non-US born women and to assess the relationship between women’s exposure to violence and immigrant status (US vs. Non-US born).

Volunteer Health Advisor Program Evaluation
The Volunteer Health Advisor (VHA) program is a volunteer-driven, multicultural, and multilingual health education and outreach initiative. The Institute for Community Health (ICH) provides evaluation support to the program, enabling program staff to track their work, monitor client satisfaction, and assess the impact the program is having on its clients. The evaluation methods are specifically tailored to serve the VHA program's multilingual and multicultural clientele.