We collaborate with partners to address a variety of public health issues, including structural factors and social determinants of health.
Intervention Design
We collaborate with program and community partners to design public health interventions and demonstration projects by identifying and applying scientific methods, best practices, and community wisdom.
Examples of our intervention design work include:
- Collaborated with partners to develop logic models based on scientific literature and community input to refine a culturally-responsive, comprehensive approach to address health disparities.
- Designed and evaluated programming for women inmates in Oregon related to nutrition and re-entry planning, leading to policy changes related to food offerings and corrections programming.
- Conducted an evaluation of REACH’s healthy nutrition standards pilot in the Donald E Long Juvenile Justice Facility to inform the development of a draft administrative procedure for comprehensive and values-based healthy food procurement that applies to all county facilities.
Program Evaluation
We work closely with public health programs to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs and provide evidence-based recommendations for program improvement.
Examples of our program evaluation work include:
- Conducted extensive evaluations of the Oregon, Washington, and Alaska state tobacco prevention and control programs, including assessments of the tobacco quit lines, studies on the tobacco burden among specific populations, and assessing the effectiveness of program components such as second-hand smoking policies, and counter-media campaigns.
- Collaborated with community and program partners in conducting process and outcome evaluations of prenatal and interconceptional integrated care provided to Black/African American women and their children.
- Evaluated individual and environmental violence prevention strategies using a combination of key informant interviews, focus groups, surveys, and analysis of existing datasets.
Policy Research and Evaluation
We conduct policy analysis and evaluation to inform decision-makers about potential policy effects, including possible unintended consequences.
Examples of our data to inform policies include:
- Maintain a broad portfolio of substance abuse policy research, including cutting-edge work on cannabis, liquor control, opiate, and tobacco policies.
- Evaluated tobacco-free policies in low-income multi-unit housing and Oregon parks to assess benefits and unintended consequences.
- Conduct bill analyses to assess the impacts of various policies, including a 2019 bill related to health equity.
Monitor and assess population health
We work with partners to frame meaningful questions, identify data sources, design and implement data collection methods, conduct analyses, interpret findings, and develop recommendations.
Examples of our applied research and surveillance include:
- Oversee OHA efforts to modernize population-based survey systems for Oregon adults and youth by (1) updating methods to recruit participants and (2) including community-based participatory research and community-led data collection.
- Manage the HIV Medical Monitoring Project, which provides population-based data about people living with HIV.
- Led the development and implementation of OHA COVID-19 modeling projections, infectious disease behavioral surveillance, and tracking of the indirect effects of COVID-19 over time.
- Used administrative claims data in a population-based, cross-sectional study to estimate the proportion of insured Oregonians who received HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing.