TEAM Up Project

CSREES is a partner with the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society to promote breast and cervical cancer screening for rarely- or never-screened women. The National Cancer Institute features a Cancer Control PLANET portal, which provides Web-based access to data and research-tested resources that can help researchers design, implement, and evaluate evidence-based cancer control programs.

Between 2003 and 2007 the TEAM Up project was a Cooperative Extension System pilot project in six states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Along with Cooperative Extension services each of these states worked with their health departments and other public health groups to reach the pockets of low-income, under or uninsured people that lack a usual source of public or private health care, or reside in rural communities. The project used evidence-based interventions to reach underserved women. State teams included representatives of the four national agencies and organizations who designed interventions with the goal of reducing cancer mortality through screening promotions.

Project background and partnership resources:

• TEAM Up PowerPoint from a 2006 National Priester Conference presentation;
• University of Kentucky’s TEAM Up poster, and

• University of Georgia’s TEAM Up Powerpoint presentations on its History, Intervention, and Planned Evaluation;
• TEAM Up PowerPoint from the CDC 2006 Cancer Partners Summit in Washington, DC;

• TEAM UP PowerPoint from the 20th National Conference on Chronic Disease and Prevention in Washington, DC.

Project Evaluation:

Between 2003 and 2008 a three-part evaluation was conducted to determine whether Team UP achieved its goals. Part I of the evaluation, the process evaluation, assessed the success of the four core state organizations in building a viable partnership. Part II, the impact evaluation, measured the ability of the Team UP states to adopt, adapt, and implement evidence-based interventions. The theory-guided process and impact evaluations were central to understand the factors influencing the Team UP partnership development and implementation activities. Part III, the outcome evaluation, assessed whether state partnerships were able to impact short-term screening rates through their use of evidence –based interventions. The following are recommendations from the evaluation for those interested in moving forward with a similar partnership model.

• Process Evaluation:
• Involve and listen to local residents and professionals during the planning phased of inter-organizational public health partnerships;
• Facilitate membership continuity in complex partnerships;
• Encourage partnership consensus to establish synergistic collaboration;
• Provide project participants with clear project expectations from the inception, and confirm that those expectations are understood;
• Maintain ongoing support throughout the entire project;

• Integrate research and practitioners experiences.

• Impact Evaluation:
• Develop a consensus of what counts as evidence and in what circumstances when adopting an intervention;
• Monitor the multiple levels and continuously evolving adaptation of an interview that occurs due to geographic and demographic diversity;
• Repackage evidence-based interventions for dissemination to facilitate the adoption, adaptation, and implementation processes for practitioners
• Match of state action agenda and dissemination and implementation processes;
• Develop a better understanding of implementation methodologies such as fidelity requirements for evidence based;
• Provide seed money (at a minimum) for timely and effective partnership implementation efforts;

• Promote standardized ways to deliver programmatic capacity building that supports partnerships to implement evidence-based approaches.

• Outcome Evaluation:

• Develop more rigorous evaluation designed focused at the local level to evaluate the short-and mid-term outcomes of implemented screening programs;

• Defer data analysis from national data for assessing screening rates in favor of first examining reliability of evidence-based intervention in each locale.

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