Importance of Data Quality for National HIV Prevention Program Monitoring and Evaluation

• Activity Number: 418 - SPEED: Biostatistical Methods, Application, and Education, Part 2
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 : 2:00 PM to 2:45 PM
• Sponsor: Quality and Productivity Section
• Author(s): Guoshen Wang* and Shubha Rao and Hui Zhao and Wei Song and Carolyn Wright and Marc Wiehn
• Companies: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Luther Consulting LLC
• Keywords: Data quality assurance; HIV prevention program ; Monitoring and evaluation; HIV testing; Linkage to HIV medical care; HIV testing indicators

Abstract

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds health departments to implement HIV prevention programs including HIV testing, linkage to HIV medical care, and referral to other support services. Health departments submit standardized quantitative program data twice yearly. Data are assessed for completeness and used to calculate prevention program indicators. Health departments receive feedback reports after each submission that describe data quality and assess progress towards meeting CDC program targets and national HIV prevention goals. For the period 2012-2017, CDC’s data quality assurance process and feedback reports have resulted in modification of measurement algorithms to better align with program implementation and improved data completeness for HIV testing indicators (e.g., for the variable linkage to HIV medical care, missing data decreased from 37.2% in 2012 to 14.6% in 2017). We will present key steps in the data quality assurance process including example SAS coding, data frames and table shells, and trends in data points for critical prevention program indicators.