Complex Interventions Deserve Complex Evaluations: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Evaluation of a Preventive Personalized Medicine Intervention

Elise M. Garton*, Serdar Savaş, Christopher Pell, Elena V. Syurina, Karien Stronks, Tomris Cesuroglu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the largest cause of disability and death globally. The human and financial costs of NCDs have raised questions of sustainability for many health systems. Personalized, preventive health interventions are an innovative way to address NCDs, but it is difficult to measure their effectiveness using standard evaluation methods. This article describes a novel approach to evaluation by coupling transdisciplinary methods with realist theory to design and pilot a health outcomes evaluation for a personalized medicine approach to NCD prevention in Istanbul, Turkey. Research and practice stakeholders contributed to study design, research questions, validation of results, and recommendations through interactive workshops, consistent dialogue, and reflection. They co-created a customized outcome measurement framework and recommendations that promote sustainability and continuous improvement of future evaluations. The participatory methods helped resolve the dichotomy between patient, practitioner, and researcher focus in the evaluation and improved stakeholders' data literacy. This research contributes to the body of evidence advocating for the use of non-standard methods such as transdisciplinary research to evaluate the effectiveness of complex interventions. The results of the pilot evaluation are also presented as a case study.

Original languageEnglish
Article number793137
Pages (from-to)1-13
Number of pages13
JournalFrontiers in public health
Volume10
Issue numberFebruary
Early online date4 Feb 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study is a part of the Developing a research agenda on primary health care with the 7K Medicine approach project, which received funding from the Amsterdam Public Health’s Global Health Program—Promotion of Collaboration 2019. It is a collaboration between Athena Institute (VU Amsterdam); department of Public Health at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC; Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD); and Gentest Institute. Gentest Institute provided in-kind support to the study in various forms. For EG, this work

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Garton, Savaş, Pell, Syurina, Stronks and Cesuroglu.

Keywords

  • non-communicable diseases
  • personalized healthcare
  • preventive healthcare
  • program evaluation
  • realist evaluation
  • transdisciplinary research

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