Heather G Zook

Professional Data Analysts · Evaluation

Context: Self-measured blood pressure monitoring (SMBP) with clinical support is effective at reducing blood pressure for people with hypertension. While strengths and challenges around SMBP are well documented, few studies describe the complexities of real-world implementation of SMBP with clinical support in the Federally Qualified Health Center...

Traditional evaluation plans are key to helping programs plan and tell their story effectively. However, complex, long-term plans require regular reassessment and revision. Indiana’s commercial tobacco control program (TPC), which is complex and multi-faceted with numerous partners, has a strong evaluation history and ongoing evaluation activities....

Engaging partners is an important step in evaluation planning, particularly when using an equitable evaluation approach. Gathering multiple perspectives can help tell a more complete story of the program and the people it serves. However, it is challenging to integrate multiple voices into evaluation planning for multi-site and multi-level programs...

Adults with low socioeconomic status (SES) have high rates of tobacco use and face more barriers to quitting than other socioeconomic groups. Individuals without health insurance have less access to healthcare providers who can support them in quitting through prescription medications and counseling. They may also be unable to afford over-the-count...

Vulnerable populations, such as people with severe behavioral health conditions or the homeless, are often a priority for public health programs. However, due to the transient nature of these populations, it can be difficult to gather accurate contact information to follow up with participants for evaluations. For example, in a recent evaluation of...

Professional Data Analysts (PDA) conducts an ongoing evaluation of an in-person tobacco cessation program that recently created a new, more intensive program tailored for patients at behavioral health treatment sites. PDA partnered with the client during the design of the program and developed a three-phased evaluation approach. As often happens wi...

The Bureau of Tobacco Free Florida, in partnership with the Area Health Education Centers (AHECs), implemented a new in-person tobacco cessation course tailored for tobacco users with behavioral health issues to complement their ongoing in-person cessation courses for the general population. The new 6-session open access tobacco cessation course of...

OBJECTIVES: Health systems play an important role in addressing tobacco use. Research indicates that implementing systems changes in clinical settings may lead to greater rates of tobacco treatment delivery and reductions in tobacco use prevalence compared with clinics and health systems that do not implement such changes. Few studies have describe...

People with behavioral health conditions use tobacco at a greater rate and have higher prevalence of tobacco-related health conditions. Tobacco Free Florida (TFF) offers in-person cessation courses and free NRT to Floridians throughout the state at behavioral health facilities through Area Health Education Centers (AHECs). This study explores how i...

In this session, we will describe the unanticipated outcomes of shifting from a more traditional evaluation approach to a principles-focused evaluation (P-FE) approach in an external evaluation of a state level policy, systems, and environmental change initiative. While we take a utilization-focused approach with most of our evaluation work, we fou...

Purpose: To examine 2-week nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) starter kit quit outcomes and predictors and the impact of adding this new service on treatment reach. Design: Observational study of a 1-year cohort of QUITPLAN Services enrollees using registration and utilization data and follow-up outcome survey data of a subset of enrollees who rec...

Background: Relapse is common for those trying to quit tobacco. Proactive outreach is an opportunity to encourage those who did not quit to try again, but research on reengaging tobacco users is limited. ClearWay MinnesotaSM and Optum (Minnesota’s QUITPLAN® Services vendor) designed a quality improvement (QI) project testing outreach timing and mul...

Emergency department (ED) utilization by American Indian (AI) children is among the highest in the nation. Numerous health disparities have been well documented in AI children, but limited information is available on parental experiences of care for AI children in the ED. Our objective was to understand parental attitudes towards ED care for AI chi...

Objective: To assess the variation between racial/ethnic groups in emergency department (ED) treatment of asthma for pediatric patients. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional analysis of pediatric (2-18 years) asthma visits among 6 EDs in the Upper Midwest between June 2011 and May 2012. We used mixed-effects logistic regression to assess th...

Objectives: The aims of this study were to determine differences in emergency department (ED) use by Native American (NA) children in rural and urban settings and identify factors associated with frequent ED visits. Methods: This cross-sectional, cohort study examined visits to 6 EDs: 2 rural, 2 midsize urban, and 2 large urban EDs from June 201...

While overall tobacco use rates continue to drop, higher rates persist among people with low-socioeconomic status (SES). Engaging organizations that are trusted messengers in these communities and where people with low-SES are receiving services may be an effective way to connect the individuals with existing cessation services. ClearWay Minnes...

Health systems play an important role in identifying and treating tobacco dependence. As reported in the U.S. Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline, Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence: 2008 Update, health systems change can increase the likelihood that tobacco dependence is addressed routinely and that identification, referral and t...

Concept mapping is a collaborative, mixed­-method approach for generating and organizing ideas within a group of stakeholders and creating a structured framework for a program. However, this approach is infrequently used in the field of evaluation. This presentation provides an overview of how to incorporate concept mapping into program and evaluat...

Background: Racial disparities are frequently reported in emergency department (ED) care. Objectives: To examine racial differences in triage scores of pediatric ED patients. We hypothesized that racial differences existed but could be explained after adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical factors. Methods: We examined all visits to two u...

Background: American Indian children have high rates of emergency department (ED) use and face potential discrimination in health care settings. Objective: Our goal was to assess both implicit and explicit racial bias and examine their relationship with clinical care. Research design: We performed a cross-sectional survey of care providers at...

The purpose of this study was to compare emergency department (ED) utilization and treatment patterns of Asian American children with children from other racial/ethnic groups. A cross-sectional design was used to examine all visits by children under 18 years to two urban pediatric EDs between June 2011 and May 2012. Demographic, socioeconomic, and...

Background: Previous research suggests that American Indian (AI) patients may visit the Emergency Department (ED) more frequently than other racial/ethnic groups. Objectives: To evaluate the influence of geographic location, socioeconomic status, and chronic disease on AI children’s ED utilization patterns. Methods: This cross-sectional study a...