Biting Back: Vector Control Program Performance Assessment and Improvement Projects

The purpose of this session will be to share the strategy of using self-assessments, prioritization processes, and achievable quality improvement projects to improve the effectiveness and capacity of vector control programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Public Health Foundation (PHF) are collaborating on the Vector Control Program Performance Assessment and Improvement Initiative. This initiative includes 14 local health departments (LHDs) to help increase the performance of their vector control programs. The LHDs begin by conducting a self-assessment using the Environmental Public Health Performance Standards developed by the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following the self-assessment, each agency prioritized its performance improvement and capacity needs, and implemented their improvement plans to address an identified area of need. PHF assisted on-site and remotely to help the health departments in using a variety of Quality Improvement (QI) methods and tools to achieve measurable improvements.

This session will highlight the experiences and steps taken by the 14 LHDs to assess performance, prioritize goals, and then develop of a performance improvement project to help build capacity and improve effectiveness by achieving measureable improvement. By the time of this session, PHF will have a variety of valuable lessons learned to share with participants to help inform participants’ ideas about developing and implementing improvement projects.

This session will be greatly useful to those involved with vector control. However, because the tools and techniques discussed could be used to address a myriad of other environmental health topics, participants looking to improve their program’s performance in any area of environmental health will find value in this session.