16. DEVELOPMENT OF VALIDATED SURVEYS TO STANDARDIZE EVALUATION OF GLOBAL HEALTH TRACKS

Abstract

Introduction Global health (GH) tracks are becoming increasingly common in pediatric residency and fellowship programs around the country. A recent Delphi process 1 identified a consensus definition for GH tracks within pediatric residency programs, determined key educational and institutional components, and established target outcomes for programmatic evaluation. The aim of this project was to develop and validate a set of standardized surveys to be used as an evaluation tool for pediatric GH tracks. Methods The authors, all committee members of the American Association of Pediatric Program Directors Global Health Learning Community (APPD GHLC), created a set of standardized surveys to serve as an evaluation tool to facilitate comparison of resources and outcomes among GH tracks within pediatric residency programs. Based on consensus outcomes identified in a previous Delphi, 1 the authors created surveys for four stakeholder groups: (1) current GH track residents, (2) GH track alumni, (3) GH track directors, and (4) GH track host sites/partners. Surveys sought to assess resident perceptions, educational outcomes, influence of tracks on career paths, and the human and monetary programmatic resources required to run tracks. As initial validation steps, the authors developed survey questions based on previously identified outcomes and input from stakeholders. The survey was reviewed by a survey methodologist to support content validity. To collect evidence of response process validity, structured cognitive interviews were conducted for each survey with 1 or more stakeholder group members with further edits incorporated. Results The resulting surveys will be piloted among three pediatric residency GH tracks in Spring 2020 with subsequent analysis of pilot data planned to assess reliability and further construct validity. Data will be used by individual GH tracks for programmatic improvement and will allow comparison among GH tracks for future research. Conclusion This is the first standardized tool for evaluating GH tracks within pediatric residency programs. The evaluation tool will be available on the APPD GHLC website.