Kay Lovelace

Maximizing Cross-Functional New Product Teams' Innovativeness and Constraint Adherence: A Conflict Communications Perspective

Increasing competition resulting from the global and technological nature of markets has heightened the need for businesses to rely on cross-functional new product teams to produce innovations in a...

Framing Photovoice Using a Social---Ecological Logic Model as a Guide.

Photovoice is a community-based participatory action research method designed to uncover the root causes of community problems and to collectively address them. Individual change and empowerment are desired outcomes of the photovoice process, but more importantly, the process seeks to engage groups and whole communities to foster positive systems change. This article presents a logic model informed by the social-ecological model of health to guide photovoice planners and participants in planning activities that produce individual-and community-level change. The model presented here should help planners and participants plan, implement, and evaluate other photovoice efforts and provide them a visual guide to ensure that all parties are on the same conceptual page and increase the intentionality of their efforts.

Promoting Community Preparedness: Lessons Learned From the Implementation of a Chemical Disaster Tabletop Exercise

Health educators are frequently called on to facilitate community preparedness planning. One planning tool is community-wide tabletop exercises. Tabletop exercises can improve the preparedness of public health system agencies to address disaster by bringing together individuals representing organizations with different roles and perspectives in specific disasters. Thus, they have the opportunity to identify each other’s roles, capabilities, and limitations and to problem-solve about how to address the gaps and overlaps in a low-threat collaborative setting. In 2005, the North Carolina Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response developed a series of exercises to test the preparedness for chemical disasters in a metropolitan region in the southeastern United States. A tabletop exercise allowed agency heads to meet in an environment promoting inter- and intraagency public—private coordination and cooperation. The evaluation results reported here suggest ways in which any tabletop exercise can be enhanced through recruitment, planning, and implementation.

Assessment of Public Health Educator Practice: Health Educator Responsibilities

This study presents a method for better understanding how practicing health educators in local health departments spend their time. The purpose of this study was to document the daily practice of health educators in the 10 areas of responsibility as defined by a competency-based framework for graduate-level health educators. The results of the current study present the average percentage of time health educators spent carrying out each area of responsibility and the percentage of health educators that did not carry out activities related to a specific area of responsibility. For example, the greatest percentage of time was spent implementing programs (21.2%), and approximately 60% of the health educators in the sample did not conduct research nor did they participate in activities to advance the profession. These findings have implications for the professional preparation of health educators and for their continuing education. The current study contains several suggestions for future research in this area.

Privatization of Local Health Department Services: Effects on the Practice of Health Education:

Local health departments (LHDs) are changing service delivery mechanisms to accommodate changes in health care financing and decreased public support for governmental services. This study examined the extent to which North Carolina LHDs privatized and contracted out services and the effects on the time spent on core functions of public health and activities of health educators. Questionnaires were mailed to the senior health educators in all LHDs. Sixty-nine responded, and 68% of LHDs had not privatized any services other than laboratory and home health. Clinical services were more commonly privatized than nonclinical services. Respondents perceived that privatization produces more time for LHDs to address the core public health functions and for health educators to engage in appropriate professional activities. Health educators in LHDs that had not privatized were more likely to be concerned about potential negative effects. This study suggests that privatization has generally had a positive effect on the roles of health educators in North Carolina LHDs.

Using Information Systems to Improve a Mid-Sized Local Health Department’s Effectiveness in a Time of Rapid Change

This study aims at describing how a midsized local health department built and used information systems to support its strategic objectives, clinical services, and surveillance.

An Iterative, Low-Cost Strategy to Building Information Systems Allows a Small Jurisdiction Local Health Department to Increase Efficiencies and Expand Services

This article explores implementation and use of informatics by a smaller local health department to meet core functions and deliver essential services on a limited budget with few personnel resources.

Local Health Departments' Partners and Challenges in Electronic Exchange of Health Information

The health care sector is undergoing a health information technology and informatics revolution with an unprecedented volume of health information being created, presenting opportunities for local health departments to access these data. This study utilizes novel, nationwide data to explore the current capacity for electronically exchanging information at local health departments, and the barriers to such an exchange.

Informatics as a Strategic Priority and Collaborative Processes to Build a Smarter, Forward-Looking Health Department.

Health information is critical to surveillance and assessment of public health threats, population and disease trends, management of clinical services, completion of immunizations, identification of disease trends, and communication with community partners. This article explores how a medium-sized local health department using best practices in informatics could implement and use informatics to improve the practice of public health.