Field Work Schedule 6.30.13

Hello all!

Edits have been made, and today we re-submitted to IRB. We had a few edits in the IRB application, but the most important thing was to get our Spanish translation finished. We also wrote a contact sheet to give to participants after the survey. It includes contact info for Steven and me, as well as how to get in touch with some of the community programs we mention. This was a suggestion from the IRB board when we got our conditional approval in May. Hopefully we'll hear back from IRB with their final approval soon!

The other very important update is the field work schedule, which can be found on the Googledrive here. This is where we can find the most updated schedule. Right now, the important things are the Skype meeting tomorrow, the team dinner Mon. July 8th, and the team training Tuesday July 9th. It will be updated as we schedule trainings, site visits, and interviews- keep checking back! Also, when we begin field work for real, we'll have team assignments for each day. That way everyone can rotate between the two projects and get the most out of the experience. At least that was my thinking. What do you guys think? Would you rather rotate through projects, or be assigned to just one for fieldwork?

Translation Update - 6.20.13

First draft of translations have been submitted for editing! The goal is to have everything finalized and into IRB next week after getting Linda Hemby's final approval. I don't think the translated survey is on the Google drive, but I can put it up there when it's finalized! The Cville organizations contact sheet has been translated and is on the Google drive. Woohoo!

Blog Goals - 6.18.13

This blog is a requirement for the UVA-Guatemala Initiative program in which we are participating, but I want us to all get the most we can out of it. Please feel free to edit and add comments! This should be a space to share ideas and collaborate, and while Melissa will take primary responsibility for keeping the project blog, I hope that we can all participate! With all of that in mind, here are the goals of this blog:

1. Communication

First and foremost, this blog should facilitate good communication between the PIs (Melissa and Steven), our undergraduate researchers (Vatsal, for now), and our mentors (Dr. Burt and Jessica). Right now, all of our resources (research, meeting notes, surveys) are stored in a Google drive. This should remain the primary location for all project materials, but we can use this blog to alert other team members when a new document has been added. We can also use the blog to note updates to already existing documents. These blog entries don't have to be long, but will serve to keep the project on track as we progress with our individual responsibilities.

Example: 6.18.13- Melissa started the project blog. Steven and Melissa met with Jessica to discuss project progress.

2. Institutional Memory

This blog will serve as a written record of the progress made on this project. This is important on several levels. First, throughout the summer, we will be able to keep track of real-time successes and difficulties in the project to alter our methods accordingly. Second, this blog will serve as the foundation for presentations and write-ups after the summer. Finally, future GSP and UVA-GI students can refer to this blog as the basis for further research and to possibly develop a pilot project to address the issues identified this summer. This will ensure continuity and longevity, which are key goals of the UVA-GI program. 

Thoughts? Please leave a comment below!

Project Overview - 6.18.13

We're launching our project blog!

In this first blog entry, I just wanted to outline a little bit about our project and where we're at right now. Steven wrote a lot of this to explain our project to our undergraduate researchers.

Our Project:

As mentioned above, the project has two parts: a stakeholder analysis and a health survey of Latino community members. With the stakeholder analysis, we will be interviewing 25 different community organizations who work with our Latino community and will be assessing the services/resources that they provide. We also developed a health survey that we hope to distribute to around 30 Latino community members in Charlottesville this summer. This survey/interview is meant to determine what the perceived health needs are among our Latino community and what may be barriers to accessing care, specifically at UVA. By understanding what resources are available and what the perceived needs may be among the community, we hope to inform future efforts to improve Latino health access and health care.

Timeline:

Spring/May - Melissa and Steven worked on a lot of background research, and talked with a lot of community partners about the reality of health care for Latinos in Charlottesville. We developed two questionnaires: an open-ended, qualitative survey to discuss with community organizations and a quantitative survey to interview Latinos about their experiences of healthcare in Charlottesville. We applied for IRB approval, and have conditional approval pending a Spanish translation of our community member survey and a few small edits to the IRB application.

June - Melissa and Steven are in Guatemala for the month of June and will not be back in the states until July 6th. During this time, undergraduate researchers could help us with background research. This could be done at home, though having access to the databases via UVA libraries would come in handy. We will also be planning and setting up interivews during this time as well. We are working on the IRB edits, Spanish translations, and hiring undergraduate researchers to help with field work.

July - Once we return on July 6th, we will have 3.5 weeks before we start school again. We will fit all of the interviews that need to be carried our during this time. During Week 1, we will carry out about a quarter of the stakeholder interviews and organize the rest of the stakeholder interviews. We will also be connecting with local stores where latino community members frequent to set up community members interviews. For Weeks 2 and 3, we will begin the community member interviews (30) and complete the stakeholder interviews. This will take us to August.

August - In August, Melissa and Steven will begin classes. We will be able to guide the project, but will be significantly busier with classes. During this month, we will begin to analyze some of the data and undergraduate researchers can complete more community interviews. After that, we can assess where we want the project to go.