Research Methods, Measures, and Data Management Core

RESEARCH METHODS, MEASURES AND DATA MANAGEMENT CORE – ABSTRACT The Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation Center (ACCERT PN) Research Methods, Measures, and Data Management (RMMDM) Core co-led by Rinad Beidas, PhD, Rachel Shelton, ScD, MPH, and Betina Yanez, PhD, will serve as a shared resource and incubator that works synergistically in the development, implementation, and evaluation of ACCERT PN research projects. The work of this Core will leverage the strengths and resources within the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center to advance the methods and measures for assessing determinants of health, community engagement processes and outcomes, and cancer control effectiveness and implementation outcomes. The ACCERT RMMDM Core will work to accomplish our broader Center theme of implementing innovative multilevel patient navigation approaches within learning health systems to address multifaceted barriers to care, with the goal of mitigating barriers to clinical cancer preventive services that represent stark worsening health outcomes and are high priority to under-resourced patient populations in Northwestern University’s catchment area communities. The RMMDM Core will support research activities for our signature research project on PN and our two community responsive projects on training of PN on community-driven cancer survivorship topics such as supportive health services and enhancing digital health literacy to develop dissemination and communication tools to enhance community engagement in PN. The RMMDM Core will be tasked with measuring community engagement, measure development and selection, ethical considerations, and data analysis, sharing and management. The RMMDM Core is designed to ensure integration and synergy across projects and will support dissemination efforts to a range of community, academic, healthcare system, and policy partners. Fundamental to this Core are foundational values around the importance of early and ongoing meaningful co-creation with community partners in pursuit of developing, implementing, conducting, and evaluating multi-level research-community projects, from initiation to completion with the goal of enhancing future sustainability and scalability. Our specific aims will focus on the following goals: 1) Data management and compliance to ensure harmonization across data, methods, measures, and analysis efforts across the ACCERT PN research projects and ensure that all projects follow NIH and NCI Data Sharing policies; 2) engage and collaborate with community partners around measure development and selection, dissemination, unintended consequences of data collection and sharing, and evaluation of community engagement and; 3) leverage our exceptional environment at Northwestern in outcome and measurement science to compile, identify, apply, and develop measures to assess the impact of multilevel interventions on cancer control outcomes, determinants of health, and implementation outcomes.