Minutes for WHRN Employee Working Group Conference Call, Thursday, July 9, 2015

Participants:  Isabel Cuervo, Nkenge Jones-Jack, Shawn Kneipp, Laura Linnan, Naoko Muramatsu, John Nyman, Meg Pomerantz, India Ornelas, Emily Stiehl, Melanie Studer

1. Welcome– Naoko welcomed the group. India Ornelas from UW and Melanie Studer introduced themselves to the group.

2. Approval of the minutes from June 11 – The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted by consensus.

3. Action Items from previous calls – Meg reviewed the action items.

4. Updates on Projects
   • Prior to the call, Meg distributed a draft of the written descriptions of each pilot/cross-network project to be submitted to the Steering Committee.  Naoko reviewed the descriptions of the projects.  She asked Meg for clarification on funding and when this is due to the Steering Committee.  Meg explained that the funding question is to inform the Steering Committee whether the project is currently funded or needs funding.  The Steering Committee meets on July 15 and the descriptions need to be completed by Friday, July 10 (or Monday July 13 at the latest).
   • Literature review – Emily thanked those who provided feedback. She and Shawn met to discuss how best to address the review in a systematic way and to narrow the focus.  She is updating the outline based on these comments and will distribute it to the group.  Discussion followed regarding the scope of the literature review and costs related to the project.
   • Secondary analysis of qualitative data (e.g. focus group and interview data) – Isabel updated the group on this project. They have addressed the IRB question.  The NY group is committed to conducting this project and have funding in their second year budget.  NYU-CUNY is willing to coordinate the project. Capacity for data analysis is contingent upon the number of interested centers contributing to the project, e.g. if only two centers contribute data, scope of work may be handled by NYU-CUNY but it can be scaled to a larger project with tasks distributed accordingly.  The number of centers interested in joining the project will affect the potential funding.  India noted that she has qualitative data and would like to explore the research question for this project.  Naoko noted that the review of literature will provide research questions for this data analysis project.  Naoko also noted that we can also consider research questions from the group.  Please send previous or current study research questions to Isabel and she will compile them.  Shawn noted that her experience with secondary analysis and suggested that researchers with data share draft a one paragraph, basic descriptions of what type of data was collected.  These descriptions will also inform the literature review.  Nkenge concurred that this would be a good strategy for these 2 projects.  Isabel asked for clarification for a timeline.  Naoko suggested that Isabel draft a model table for these description to share with others by the next call.
   • Research that will build health promotion into the job for low wage workers (e.g. home health, child care, etc.) – Naoko further described this project and asked the group for additional comments on this project. Isabel noted that she does not think their Year 1 project will yield data that will add to this project, and she will talk with Sherry about other projects that she completed with home care workers.  India noted a project called ALMA (Amigas Latinas Motivando el Alma/Latina Friends Motivating the Soul) that was piloted in NC, and India has continued this work in WA.  India will share the 2 papers that were published from this study.
   • National employee survey regarding health promotion programs. Naoko noted that this project was first proposed by JHU with no funding.  She also noted that the working group sees this project as a cross network project and that the other 3 projects lead to this one.  Additionally, she spoke about the Gallup database.  Isabel stated that she and Sherry spoke about this data and encourage the network to keep in mind that we have a goal to research interventions if we decide to move forward with this database opportunity.  Laura added that there is also a current project that will be a national survey of employers funded by the CDC, and there is interest (with no guarantee) to develop a SIP for adding an employee aspect to this survey.  This SIP might provide an excellent opportunity for our network to research interventions.  Laura will be giving an update about this project on a future full membership call.

5. Future Calls – Next call is Thursday, August 13, 2-3pm (EDT)

6. Action Items
   • Emily will update the literature review outline and distribute it to the group.
   • Isabel will develop a model table that will facilitate the compilation of potentially available qualitative data (focus group, interview data, etc.) for the secondary analysis project.
   • Members who have research questions for the secondary data analysis study will send them to Isabel and she will compile them.
   • India will share the 2 papers from the ALMA (Amigas Latinas Motivando el Alma/Latina Friends Motivating the Soul) study.

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