PDA News

PDA staff hosting AEA Coffee Break webinar this Thursday

AFicek — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:25:29 +0000

Calling all American Evaluation Association members! Join PDA Senior Evaluator Lija Greenseid on Thursday at 1 pm CT as she leads this week’s AEA Coffee Break Demonstration webinar. She’ll be talking about conducting mixed-mode surveys and promises the 20-minute session will be informative and entertaining.

Here’s a link to registration information: http://comm.eval.org/coffee_break_webinars/CoffeeBreak/

PDA staff attend 17th Annual MESI Conference

AFicek — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:00:30 +0000

PDA Program Evaluator Vanessa Klisch and Chief Operating Officer Harlan Luxenberg attended the 17th Annual Minnesota Evaluation Studies Institute (MESI) Spring Conference from March 28th to 30th. This year’s conference was titled “Evaluation in a Complex World: Changing Expectations, Changing Realities.” Speakers and panelists included former MN Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm, Professor Jean A. King, Vanessa McKendall-Stephens, and Michael Quinn Patton. The theme of the conference allowed for sessions on several emerging and interesting topics such as Impact Evaluation, International Development Evaluation, and Participatory Approaches to Community-based Public Health Evaluation.

Vanessa also participated in the MESI Café, a new type of session in which several facilitators host small group sessions on a variety of topics. Participants traveled between tables to discuss evaluation subjects to both learn from their peers and take advantage of the facilitators’ expertise. PDA staff also learned about some of the innovative ways that local foundations are evaluating both their grantees and themselves. Thanks to MESI for putting together another great conference.

For more information about MESI and other learning opportunities, please visit http://evaluation.umn.edu/.

PDA staff post about conducting mixed-mode surveys

PDA_News — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:53:58 +0000

Lija Greenseid, a senior evaluator at PDA, recently wrote a post for the American Evaluation Association’s tip-a-day blog, also known as aea365. Lija’s post provided some tips on conducting mixed-mode surveys. To read her full aea365 post, click here.

She will also discuss mixed-mode surveys in AEA’s coffee break webinar on Thursday, April 26^th from 1:00-1:20pm CT. If you are an AEA member, we hope you can join her discussion!

PDA staff presenting a poster at 2012 SRNT Conference

PDA_News — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:27:23 +0000

Media Evaluator Jacob Depue will be presenting a poster at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco’s annual conference in Houston, Texas. The poster, Targeting “Connectors” in a Statewide Tobacco Control Media Campaign, examines the role of connectors in diffusing health media content through interpersonal communication. Connectors are individuals who are active and influential in their community and play a critical role in diffusing health campaign content in their communities. Health campaigns have recently placed a greater emphasis on reaching connectors.

The research was conducted as a joint effort between PDA and ClearWay Minnesota. It assesses the effectiveness of ClearWay’s “We All Pay the Price” tobacco cessation campaign at targeting connectors and stimulating interpersonal communication about campaign content. Results show that the campaign was successful in reaching connectors with campaign messages, and that connectors who reported being influential in their community talked more frequently about campaign content than non-connectors. The research demonstrates the importance of stimulating conversation among influential citizens and provides a model for future health campaigns to effectively reach such people.

PDA staff coauthor BMC Public Health article

PDA_News — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:39:51 +0000

Lija Greenseid, Michael Luxenberg, and Matthew Christenson are co-authors with colleagues at ClearWay Minnesota^SM and the University of Minnesota on a new peer-reviewed journal article. The article is entitled, “The relation between media promotions and service volume for a statewide tobacco quitline and a web-based cessation program.” The article examines the impact of anti-tobacco media campaigns while controlling for other environmental factors on weekly calls to a state quitline and registrations for an online cessation intervention program. PDA conducted a multivariate regression analysis with two outcomes to examine the impact of media on these two standalone programs.

The article is published in BMC Public Health, an open-source, peer reviewed journal. The article is available online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/939/abstract

PDA awarded contract to evaluate North Dakota stop-smoking programs

PDA_News — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:38:26 +0000

PDA was recently awarded a contract from the North Dakota Department of Health to evaluate the Quitline and QuitNet tobacco cessation programs. The North Dakota Tobacco Quitline and QuitNet Cessation Programs are components of a comprehensive tobacco control effort being developed and implemented by the North Dakota Department of Health and guided by best practices as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control.

PDA will partner with the North Dakota Department of Health to develop a comprehensive process and outcome evaluation to provide recommendations to enhance the Quitline and QuitNet programs. North Dakota is the sixth state for which PDA currently conducts tobacco control and other public health evaluations. We look forward to working with our neighbors to the northwest!

Congratulations to Anne Betzner and Melissa Chapman-Haynes!

PDA_News — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:45:30 +0000

PDA Vice President, Anne Betzner, and Senior Evaluator, Melissa Chapman-Haynes, each gave birth to healthy baby boys about 36 hours apart last week in the same hospital in Minneapolis. Anne’s son, William Connor Bradford, was born at 7:43 am on Thursday, January 5^th and Melissa’s son, David Antoine Haynes III, was born at 9:30 pm on Friday, January 6^th. This is the first child for each of them, and they are both very excited to become mothers. All of us at PDA are thrilled for Anne, Melissa, their husbands, and their expanding families!

Welcome to PDA, Angie Ficek!

MChapman — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:25:32 +0000

PDA is happy to announce the addition of a new Associate Evaluator to our staff! Angie Ficek comes to us from the Minnesota Institute of Public Health where she contributed to the evaluation of Minnesota’s Statewide Health Improvement Program and several substance abuse prevention programs. Prior to working at the Minnesota Institute of Public Health, Angie served as a public health program coordinator at South Dakota State University in the Office of Nursing Research. In this role, she contributed to the evaluation of South Dakota’s tobacco Quitline as well as their cancer control coalition. At PDA, Angie is working on tobacco quitline evaluation projects for the states of Hawaii, Florida, and Connecticut. She is also working on obesity prevention programs for youth with the Connecticut Department of Public Health. Angie received her BA in Psychology from Minnesota State University – Moorhead and MPH in Community Health Education from the University of Minnesota. She is thrilled to be at PDA and to work with quitlines again!

Using LimeSurvey to increase data security

PDA_News — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:00:03 +0000

PDA has maintained our high standards of data security by utilizing features in the LimeSurvey online surveying software. Specifically, because LimeSurvey is open source and can be installed on a company’s servers, PDA is able to control access to the survey data so that no one else, including a web hosting company, can access it. We also use PDA’s SSL certificate to protect data entered through online surveys. We have found that many other survey programs store the data on their own servers, which would have limited our ability to monitor or increase the protection of sensitive data. PDA is committed to maintaining a high level of data security and by storing all survey data in PDA’s encrypted databases we are able to do that.

For more information about LimeSurvey, visit their website, www.limesurvey.com, or watch for future posts on how PDA has been using LimeSurvery.

Welcome to PDA, Vanessa Klisch!

MChapman — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:00:36 +0000

PDA is happy to announce the addition of a new Program Evaluator to our staff! Vanessa Klisch comes to us after moving home to Minnesota after several years in the San Francisco Bay area. Before her return, she worked at Blue Shield of California managing mental health, EAP, and tobacco cessation programs. She also spent several years at the Minnesota Institute of Public Health coordinating their Service to Science Program Evaluation Academy and worked on evaluation projects related to chemical dependency. At PDA, Vanessa is working on tobacco quitline evaluation projects for ClearWay Minnesota and the Florida Department of Health. Vanessa received her BA in American Indian Studies and MPH in Community Health Education from the University of Minnesota and was a MacArthur Scholar. She is excited to be at PDA and overjoyed at being back in the Twin Cities!