Evidence-Based and Community-Engaged Pandemic Responses for Calgary

Abstract

To optimally support the health of families, interventions provided by community organizations must be evidence-based. As well, strategies should be locally informed to ensure relevancy of interventions and smooth incorporation of research within existing systems. While research attracts awareness to particular community issues, there is often a disconnect between research collection and subsequent translation into community-level policies. Greater focus on evidence-based and community-engaged interventions are necessary to mobilize research into practice, and ultimately improve outcomes for families who rely on services.

COVID-19 has highlighted the pre-existing political, economic, and structural impediments to knowledge mobilization that community organizations contend with. To better understand existing evidence on the role of support, communication, and funding approaches that facilitate knowledge mobilization from a community engagement perspective, a scan of the literature was conducted and summarized. These findings were then contextualized to understand the specific priorities and issues in Calgary using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) to engage diverse stakeholder groups. Five NGT groups were held over the course of two weeks to generate ideas surrounding barriers to evidence-based service provision throughout COVID-19, as well as solutions that have the potential to address aforementioned challenges.

Though the engagement process, focus group members of community-service organizations identified barriers to evidence-based service provision, including the inefficacy and practicality of virtual service delivery, a lack of clarity and consistency among various government pandemic protocols, staffing and scheduling challenges, and the effect of short-term funding structures on collaboration within the sector. These difficulties are heightened by pre-existing vulnerabilities, as vulnerable families are most likely to be adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing public health restrictions implemented.

To improve the ability of organizations to deliver community-centred and evidencebased services for this pandemic, and to prepare better for future emergencies, common themes included person-centered policy and program approaches and reciprocal partnership development. Findings led to three policy approaches that could be considered towards evidence based, community engaged pandemic response: (1) education and consultation with community organizations, (2) subsidy and grant provision for community-based research, and (3) formalizing a local network of researchers, community organizations, and policymakers.