Development and testing of an evidence-informed structured survey tool for planning tailored technical assistance

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Program Evaluation

Background:

• Technical assistance (TA) is crucial for enhancing program development and implementation.
• Tailoring TA to recipient needs can improve engagement and effectiveness.
• Existing methods for assessing TA needs may not fully capture recipient preferences or barriers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an evidence-informed survey tool for planning tailored technical assistance.
• To identify recipients' preferred TA delivery methods, activity categories, and duration.
• To determine barriers and facilitators influencing engagement with TA.

Main Methods:

• A two-phase study was conducted: survey component outlining and validity assessment, followed by survey testing with state tobacco control staff.
• Face and content validity were assessed.
• Descriptive statistics were used to analyze survey responses from 27 participants representing 14 state tobacco control programs.

Main Results:

• Virtual meetings were the preferred TA delivery method for professional development, coaching, and collaborative work.
• Preferred TA duration was 1.4-3.0 hours/month.
• Key preferences included pragmatic, actionable information and examples of similar challenges. Barriers included low organizational capacity and competing priorities.

Conclusions:

• The developed TA survey effectively captures recipient preferences for TA activities, delivery methods, and duration.
• Understanding and addressing identified barriers is essential for optimizing TA engagement.
• This tool enables TA providers to plan more effective and tailored support for program development and implementation.