Resource Center: Tips for Success

Section 1

Section 1, Step 1 Tips

Collaboration

  • Create a brief partnership profile to share with potential new partners or to use as a tool for recruitment of new partners.

Management

  • Ensure each organizational partner has more than one person involved in the partnership to maintain institutional memory in the event of staff turnover.
  • Institute shared leadership or periodic leadership changes to bring new energy to the evaluation, overcome bureaucratic or regulatory roadblocks, or realign partners with the vision over time.
  • Enhance partnership sustainability by increasing consistency and follow through among leaders and staff, offering revolving partnership membership, creating long range plans, or involving representatives from local government.

Equity

  • Engagement of members of the population of interest may require a strong partnership commitment to hiring residents, people who grew up in the community, and/or those who have the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the individuals living in this population.

Section 1, Step 2 Tips

Management

  • Track shared decisions about and descriptions of the population of interest, partners’ vision for change, and anticipated indicators of success.

Equity

  • When selecting population(s) of interest, identify subpopulations that may experience the largest number of pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
  • Identify and understand health disparities (e.g., social, economic, or environmental conditions) experienced by people in your population of interest related to health outcomes (e.g., obesity, asthma, diabetes, heart disease) and health behaviors (e.g., walking for recreation, walking for transportation, use of public transit). I identify any differences within of these health concerns or behaviors and organize by subpopulations.
  • Identify and understand how social determinants of health and distribution of resources (e.g., housing, walking destinations, public transportation) throughout your population of interest compares to surrounding populations.

Planning Pluses and Pitfalls

  • Geographic populations may be formally designated (e.g., state, zip code, census tract) or informally agreed upon (e.g., neighborhood, region). If your population is an informal designation, work with partners to agree on geographic boundaries (e.g., streets to define a neighborhood, zip codes or counties to define a region).
  • Partners with few or limited relationships with members of the population of interest will need time to establish these relationships in order to increase understanding of this population and participation of members in the evaluation planning process.
  • New partners, those with limited availability, or those with limited skills or experience with evaluation may feel intimidated about participating in these conversations. So, be prepared to translate the relevance of the evaluation to all partners and use inclusive, practical language (e.g., avoid jargon and acronyms, offer concrete examples) to engage all parties.
  • Take into account the history of the partners and the population of interest. If trust is an issue, work to identify the reasons for distrust among partners and populations or subpopulations and to increase communication in order to rebuild these relationships (e.g., facilitated discussions).

Section 1, Step 3 Tips

Management

  • Record and track shared decisions about the types of evaluation to incorporate into the evaluation plan.

Planning Pluses and Pitfalls

  • Insufficient time, funds, and resources to address multiple types of evaluation.

Section 1, Step 4 Tips

Management

  • Record and track shared decisions about target audiences and the relevance of evaluation to these audiences.

Planning Pluses and Pitfalls

  • Relevance of the evaluation purpose to multiple audiences (e.g., funders, partners, program population)

Section 1, Step 5 Tips

Management

  • Clearly and succinctly state the evaluation purpose(s) at the beginning of the evaluation plan.

Section 1, Step 6 Tips

Collaboration

  • Identify meeting dates and times that work for all partners to ensure broad participation in meetings.
  • Provide transportation, child care, and snacks or meals to increase regular meeting attendance.
  • Consider the timing of the evaluation with respect to partner readiness (e.g., stage of intervention, political climate).
  • Discuss partners’ evaluation training needs.
  • Maintain partner focus on action.
  • Document partner meetings, including locations, dates and times, attendance, agendas, discussions, decisions, next steps, and timelines.
  • Celebrate small and large accomplishments kept up the partnership’s momentum.

Management

  • Plan for partner or staff turnover to avoid loss of institutional memory causing initiatives to stagnate or lose momentum.
  • Ensure leaders have intimate engagement with each piece of the work plan and regular communication with each partner and the broader population of interest.
  • Effectively manage conflict and friction to enhance group functioning.

Equity

  • Active involvement of all partners and representativeness of subpopulations in the population of interest increases the likelihood of sustainability.

Planning Pluses and Pitfalls

  • Clarifying and reaching agreement on roles and responsibilities of staff and partners.
  • Partners feeling intimidated about doing evaluation or having limited expertise, or skills.
  • Time partners have to commit to the evaluation compared to the amount of overall time it takes to see partnership efforts come to fruition.
  • Partner retention and the overall number of people and organizations dwindling over time placing an increased burden on a smaller number of people.
  • Significant disparities and inequities in the community limited partnerships’ abilities to get things done.
  • Insufficient funds and funding cuts at state and national levels.
  • Lack of community and governmental understanding and support for proposed changes.
  • Using resources efficiently and containing costs.
  • Ability to communicate with, engage, or motivate partners
  • A lack of effective leadership or frequent changes in leadership.
  • A lack of trust among partners.
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Section 2

Section 2, Step 1 Tips

Assess the effectiveness of a pedestrian program by involving procedures that are useful, feasible, ethical, and accurate.

Evaluating the program can demonstrate to stakeholders how effective the program is. The program can be then replicated in other areas with more confidence.

Collaboration

  • Sharing the drafted program description with the implementing agencies of the interventions maintains stakeholder engagement and ensures a mutual understanding of the intervention and evaluation focus. Engineers, educators, planners, and enforcement officials all play a role in identifying and implementing effective safety improvements.

Section 2, Step 2 Tips

Align intervention efforts with the overall goals of your agency (and other partner agencies when possible) to keep the evaluation focused and useful.

The goals and objectives should align with other strategic plans such as the State Highway Safety Strategic Plan.

Developing pedestrian safety interventions for goals and objectives are on the individual programs within the PSAP or can be done on the PSAP as a whole.

Collaboration

  • Representatives from each key implementing organization should provide input and insight to the goals and objectives being considered in the evaluation. Collaborating with partners in the developmental stages will ensure that multiple perspectives are captured and the evaluation design is comprehensive.

You may not need to create the goals and objectives of the intervention being evaluated. A well-crafted PSAP or intervention description will have the goals and objectives clearly outlined.

The partners and stakeholders can provide additional insight (not described in the PSAP) on how the interventions were implemented and changes to the implementation. Including them in the process is essential to understanding the intervention and enhancing the evaluation.

When you take the time to build population profile, remember to consider the perspective or your target audience. For example, if your priority population reads at a low literacy level, be sure to draft education materials and signage with easy-to-read and accessible language so that the messaging is clear.

Well-designed PSAPs should already have the risk factors and protective factors identified before an intervention has been implemented.

Section 2, Step 3 Tips

There are other models that can be useful to map out the relationship of the intervention. For example, the Social Economic Model (SEM) or the Action Model are frameworks that provide a visual representation of the network of interactions between an individual, their interpersonal relationships, organizations, community, and policy.

Logic models are designed to illustrate the intervention in a clear and concise format. Keeping it simple will keep you, your team, and the intervention on track.

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Section 3

Section 3, Step 1 Tips

Make sure partner concerns are included to increase applicability of the evaluation results to pedestrian safety improvements.

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Section 4

Section 4, Step 1 Tips

Existing Data Systems include Crash and Roadway data, Vehicle data, Driver Citation & Adjudication data
Injury Surveillance Systems (i.e., MS, Trauma Registry, State level ED and Hospital inpatient discharge data, and Vital Records).

Section 4, Step 2 Tips

Using data/information collected from pedestrian counts can inform the change in pedestrian behaviors prior to and after a new intersection design was created.

The DOT may collect pedestrian counts as part of the street auditing procedures. Working closely with the DOT partners can ensure that other variables that can inform the evaluation will be collected by during street auditors.

Often this method requires a great deal of pre-planning and coordination with other partners to ensure that timing and survey distribution logistics are appropriate and in alignment with the intervention.

For the purpose of triangulation, it’s good practice to have more indicators of an outcome or activities collected in more than one data collection instrument.

A survey should contain simply written questions that will help collect accurate and meaningful survey responses. For more tips on how to construct survey questions see “CDC Program Evaluation Tip Sheet: Constructing Survey Questions”

For more tips and guidance on how to design a survey visit Creative Research Systems

Here is a table of variables to consider from each data source.

A more detailed list and data source description can be found in the ISW8

Injury Surveillance Systems uses ICD9/ICD10 codes to indicate a pedestrian inpatient and death data- They are stratified in traffic and non-traffic.

  • ICD-10-CM
    • Pedestrian, traffic: [V02–V04](.1,.9), V09.2
    • Pedestrian, non-traffic: V01, [V02–V04](.0), V05, V06, V09(.0–.1,.3,.9)
  • ICD-9-CM
    • Pedestrian, traffic: E810-E819(.7)
    • Pedestrian, non-traffic: E800-807(.2), E820-E825(.7), E826-E829(.0)

When deciding on which format to use for your KII or FGD, be sure to have an understanding of your target audience and goals of your evaluation. For example, if you want to measure interactions and body language, it might be best to do a face-to-face interview.

Although it is extremely valuable to review case studies presented by others online and through your network, you may find it even more valuable to create and review case studies from your own agencies. Review what you have done in the past and evaluate an intervention. Here is a resource to help you write a case study for your agency.

When conducting an environmental observational study on a specified area, you can engage your stakeholders and ask them to join you. This is a great way to continue collaboration and to get to know the environment and its functionality as best as you can.

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Section 5

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Section 6

Section 6, Step 1 Tips

When you are working with stakeholders to prioritize needs, make sure that you are working in a small group. The more opinions you have at the table, the longer this process will take. Working with partners to identify needs will establish buy-in when it's time to put in the work and implement change.

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