Almquist and Colleagues Develop a Novel Mapping Protocol to Identify Family-based Services
Posted: 12/14/2023 (CSDE Research)
CSDE Trainee Lars Almquist published research with co-authors in Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, titled “A Novel Approach to Geographically Mapping Effective Family-Based Services: Feasibility and Quality Comparison with 2-1-1“. The research was conducted in the UW CoLab for Community and Behavioral Health Policy, as part of work to assist other initiatives. Community social services are often fragmented and difficult to navigate. This presents a barrier to programs, such as health navigation, that focus on connecting individuals to available services. Existing service mapping efforts, such as those generated by 2-1-1, are helpful but limited in the specificity they provide, particularly with regard to whether services are based on evidence-informed principles. This may lead to a distrust of service quality or poor referral match. Authors developed a novel service mapping protocol to identify local, evidence-informed, family-based services, and compared results to 2-1-1’s resource list.
Their mapping protocol identified more evidence-informed services than 2-1-1 and collected greater detail related to accessibility. Their study offers recommendations for integrating this approach into routine community mapping efforts (e.g., 2-1-1) or as a stand-alone approach.