Does a Community-Engaged Health Informatics Platform Facilitate Resource Connectivity? An Evaluation Framework

Area of Science:

• Public Health Informatics
• Community-Based Participatory Research
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Addressing social determinants and population health necessitates effective mobilization of community health resources.
• Community-engaged health informatics (CEHI) bridges informatics and community-based participatory public health approaches.
• Existing platforms often lack robust evaluation frameworks for assessing resource connectivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a framework for evaluating the process and outcomes of a CEHI platform.
• To assess the platform's effectiveness in improving connectivity among community health resources.
• To model how informatics and community resources can enhance population health.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of the GetHealthyHeights.org CEHI platform in an urban low-income community.
• Development of a conceptual framework, methodology, and operational measures for evaluating connectivity.
• Application of social network analysis (SNA) and a social network survey of community-based organizations (CBOs) (n=35) at baseline.

Main Results:

• The evaluation framework successfully defined network connectivity metrics.
• Baseline social network data demonstrated the utility of SNA for characterizing connectivity among community resources.
• The study established a model for how informatics and community resources contribute to population health improvements.

Conclusions:

• A system-level evaluation approach, such as SNA, is crucial for understanding dynamic community resource networks.
• The developed CEHI evaluation framework provides a robust method for assessing platform impact on resource connectivity.
• This work models the pathway through which CEHI platforms can improve population health outcomes by enhancing resource integration.