Module 5: Conducting Community Service Assessments in Native Communities

Goal of Module 5:

To provide Community Services Assessment steps, tools, and resources for the development of an HIV/AIDS prevention intervention program.

This module contains the fundamentals for the systematic gathering of knowledge to better understand the needs and strengths in your community as they relate to HIV. The knowledge gathered will help to build a strengths-based and community-driven HIV prevention intervention program which responds to community needs. The model used is based on the Community Services Assessment (CSA). This module will take you through the steps of a CSA: needs assessment, resource inventory, and gap analysis.

Contents
5 Data Analysis

This module helps you create and conduct a CSA to aid in planning your HIV prevention intervention program.

It includes information on:

The best needs assessment uses both quantitative data and qualitative data to assess what goes on in a community. If a variety of data sources tell the same story, then this will strengthen the integrity of the needs assessment.

The data that you collect from both secondary and primary sources need to be analyzed so that you can make comparisons and identify trends and themes. Not all analysis is complicated: you can tally quantitative information and calculate some percentages easily. Some qualitative information can be “recoded” into numbers and then tallied. For example, if you asked the question, “Of what tribe(s) are you a member?” and you received five different answers from all respondents, then you could recode each answer/tribe to reflect a specific number. This way, your information would be in quantitative format, and you could easily tally the results.

Quantitative Data

At a minimum, statistical analyses of quantitative data require:

  • Reviewing completed instruments to ensure that there is no missing information.
  • Coding open-ended responses that were not pre-coded.
  • Entering the information into databases.
  • Preparing frequency distributions that present the number and percentage of respondents giving each possible response, both overall and by population categories. The total number of respondents in each population category should also be reported.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative data are more subjective and involves sorting through the information and gathering like responses to identify themes and trends.

Analysis of qualitative data involves creating a classification system for major topics and issues, coding material by the topics, and grouping them together. The steps entail:

  • Identification and ordering information related to each topic from every data collection method.
  • Identification of the most frequent response or most common responses within and across groups of respondents, and differences reported within and across groups of respondents.
  • Summary of information and comparison of responses by type of respondents and population group.
  • Comparison and contrast of qualitative information about the same topic across sources.
  • Comparison of qualitative findings with quantitative findings on the same questions, topic and population groups.

When more sophisticated methods are required, contact the local or state health department epidemiologist for assistance. If the budget allows, statisticians from local universities may also provide an additional resource. You can also recruit volunteers or graduate interns from local universities.

The Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment at the University of Texas at Austin offers useful Assessment Resources on its website. Refer to the section on data analysis for suggestions on analyzing survey responses and coding qualitative data.

Exercise: Analyzing Data

  • Are the data quantitative, qualitative, or both?
  • Does the committee have the skills to analyze the information, or do they need help?
  • Where can you go for help?
  • How do the data from different sources compare? Does it all say the same thing or are there differences?
  • Does the pre-existing information support your findings?
  • What trends and themes stand out?
  • What needs are identified?

Click here to view Our Town’s analysis of their data collection.