# Presentation: 075455

## Needs Assessment: Getting To Know Your Audiences Better 

## Objectives 

- Know how to assess your audience—know who they are, what they value, and what factors influence their health.
- Be able to find resources and methods for collecting data from first-hand (primary) and second-hand (secondary) sources.
- Understand the value of using good data sources to drive your program.
- Be able to find other groups and agencies that could assist—or that may compete—with your program efforts.

## Handouts

- A brief on focus groups
- Additional qualitative methods
- Quantitative versus qualitative questions activity
- Literature review
- Guide to secondary sources
- Steps for involving partners in the program
- Open-ended question guide for needs assessment
- Needs assessment case study.

## Brainstorming Activity 

- List three things that you do not know about your audience but will need to know before developing a health promotion plan.
- Where might you find this information?

## Questions To Answer About Your Audience

- Which audiences have the greatest cancer burden?
- How might you describe your audience? What is their race/ethnicity? Education level(s)? Age ranges? General socioeconomic status?
- Where/how do they spend the majority of their time?
- What are their health beliefs?
- What are their gaps in knowledge or barriers to heath information?
- What are their health needs? What do they want with regard
-     to . . . ? (This may or may not be related to what they value.)
- What are the best ways to reach your audience (e.g., looking at community resources)?  What is their media access/use?

## Information Collection

- Primary sources
- Quantitative:  Surveys/questionnaires
- Qualitative:  Focus groups, public meetings, direct observation
- Qualitative:  In-depth interviews with community leaders, interviews with other program planners.

## Activity: Taking a Closer Look at Additional Qualitative Methods 

- 1. Take a moment to look over the qualitative method you are assigned (     see Handout #3):
- In-Depth Interviewing
- Key Informant or Elite Interviewing
- Case Studies
- Historical Analysis.
- 2. Find at least one pro and one con of the method.
- 3. Optional: When would you use this method?

## Activity: Quantitative Versus Qualitative Questions 

-    	Activity: Review the questions in Handout #4.
- Think about which questions you would use for quantitative vs. qualitative research.
- Mark questions that you would use for a questionnaire or survey (quantitative) with a “.”
- Mark questions that you would use during a focus group or interview (qualitative) with a “.”

## Information Collection 

- Secondary sources
- Health status data: demographics, vital statistics, hospital records, morbidity and mortality reports
- Cancer Control PLANET (_http://cancercontrolplanet._x000b___cancer.gov_)
- State Cancer Profiles (NCI, CDC)
- Literature review.

## Literature Reviews 

- Before you begin, ask yourself:
- What is the specific problem or question I want to define?
- What type of literature should I review?
- What issues should I be looking at more closely?
- Journals versus magazines:
- Peer review.
- Web sites:
- .gov, .org, and .edu versus .com
- Editorial board
- Links
- Update
- Online databases.

## Some Useful Web Sites

- U.S. Census Bureau: _[http://www.census.gov](http://www.census.gov/)_
- National Center for Health Statistics: _[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs)_
- State Cancer Profiles: _[http://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov](http://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/)__ (can be accessed through the Cancer Control PLANET Web site, __[http://cancercontrolplanet.cancer.gov](http://cancercontrolplanet.cancer.gov/)__)_
- American Cancer Society’s Facts and Figures: _[http://www.cancer.org/docroot/STT/stt_0.asp](http://www.cancer.org/docroot/STT/stt_0.asp)_
-      See Handout #6: Guide to Secondary Sources.

## Your Goal . . .

- You will have a better understanding of factors that affect the health of your audience. These include:
- Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs
- Cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs
- Environment
- Access to resources
- Competing messages
- Socioeconomic status.

## Establish a Baseline

- What does your audience know about the causes of the disease?
- Do they know the factors that increase or decrease their risk?
- Does your audience get screened for the disease?
- What other health-driven behaviors does your audience do?

## Partnerships 

- Definition:
- 	The goal of a partnership is to create synergy.  This is a state in which each partner is a resource. Together they create a stronger unit. Synergy gives each partner a chance to volunteer his or her strengths, experience, skills, and knowledge in order to achieve what the individual could not do alone.

## Degrees of Partnership 

- Extensive—development through dissemination
- Limited—provide channels of delivery that support one or more of the following:
- Implementation
- Evaluation
- Promotion
- Dissemination.

## Your Experience 

- Have you had any successful partnerships with:
- Organizations with competing messages
- Nontraditional program partners.
- Did these partners provide useful information about your audience?

## Barriers 

- Competing health messages
- Unhealthy lifestyles
- Other health issues
- Other health-enhancing activities.
- Basic needs
- Expenses
- Care-taking.
- Education
- Fears/misconceptions/stigma.

## Case Study Activity 

- Scenario 1: You are a State cancer control planner in Texas and would like to learn about the incidence and mortality of cancer in your State.
- Where can you look?
- Scenario 2: You have decided to target your cancer control program to Cameron County, TX.
- What sources of information can you use to learn about the community’s health beliefs, practices, and concerns?
- What sort of terms may be useful for doing an online search?
- Scenario 3: You have decided to interview the leaders in your community.
- How do you define a community leader?
- What kinds of questions will you want to ask community leaders in Cameron County, TX?

## Objectives 

- Know how to assess your audience—who they are, what they value, and what factors influence their health.
- Be able to find resources and methods for collecting data from first-hand (primary) and second-hand (secondary) sources.
- Understand the value of using good data sources to drive your program.
- Be able to find other groups and agencies that could assist—or that may compete with—your program efforts.

## Questions?