MEASUREMENT ISSUES IN HOME-VISITING RESEARCH WITHIN TRIBAL COMMUNITIES: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES

Abstract

In this article, Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) grantees share strategies they have developed and adopted to address the most common barriers to effective measurement (and thus to effective evaluation) encountered in the course of implementation and evaluation of their home-visiting programs. We identify key challenges in measuring outcomes in Tribal MIECHV Programs and provide practical examples of various strategies used to address these challenges within diverse American Indian and Alaska Native cultural and contextual settings. Notably, high-quality community engagement is a consistent thread throughout these strategies and fundamental to successful measurement in these communities. These strategies and practices reflect the experiences and innovative solutions of practitioners working on the ground to deliver and evaluate intervention programs to tribal communities. They may serve as models for getting high-quality data to inform intervention while working within the constraints and requirements of program funding. The utility of these practical solutions extends beyond the Tribal MIECHV grantees and offers the potential to inform a broad array of intervention evaluation efforts in tribal and other community contexts.

Keywords: American Indians and Alaska Natives; Amérindiens et autochtones d'Alaska; Hausbesuche; Indianer und Ureinwohner Alaskas; Messung; Mesure; Visite à domicile; home visiting; indígenas norteamericanos y nativos de Alaska; measurement; medidas de desempeño; visitas a casa; الزيارة المنزلية ، القياس ، الهنود الأمريكيين وسكان آلاسكا الأصليين; アメリカインディアンとアラスカ原住民; 家庭訪問; 測定法; 測量; 美洲印第安人和阿拉斯加原住民.