“I feel like I have a voice and actually contribute to something important” Using engaging data visualization and storytelling techniques to build the community’s capacity to evaluate and analyze data

Abstract Information: The CDC-funded initiative, Community Approaches to Reducing STIs (CARS), addresses disparities in STI rates among Black/African-American straight and queer-identifying young adults ages 21-27 in Jackson, MS. Utilizing a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework, we worked with a locally-based anchor organization, My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), and a Community Advisory Board (CAB), comprised of 5 young adults reflective of the priority populations, to design an STI prevention intervention, Safe Space JXN, from 2020-2023. Safe Space JXN is a media campaign developed in partnership with a locally-based marketing agency, Fahrenheit Creative Group. Safe Space JXN is active on Instagram, Twitter/X, and billboards across Jackson.

Aligned with the 2024 AEA conference theme of amplifying and empowering voices in evaluation, we will demonstrate how we worked collaboratively with our anchor organization, whose staff were emerging evaluators, and with the CAB, who could be the new generation of evaluators. We will illustrate how we built MBK’s capacity to do community engagement work authentically and offered new ideas for program monitoring and evaluation. Further, we will demonstrate how the CAB designed the intervention virtually during COVID-19 and how we use creative engagement techniques like storytelling to complete largely evaluation tasks such as developing intervention performance measures and evaluation planning. Lastly, we will share our process of conducting monthly “Data Dives” with the CAB via a dynamic data dashboard displaying social media analytics data and facilitating rich discussions on data. These intentional data-focused activities have been crucial for continuous quality improvement, building both MBK’s and the CAB’s capacity for analyzing data, and for intervention sustainability. Successes, challenges, and lessons learned during this project will be shared and discussed.