MERL Tech DC 2018

Launched in 2009 by CDC and the White House, Act Against AIDS (AAA) is an umbrella initiative that combats complacency about HIV and AIDS in the United States by raising awareness among all Americans. AAA launched with three distinct efforts requiring monitoring and evaluation and rose to as many as 18 distinct efforts in 2016. During this time, data across the AAA suite were systematically collected and processed through customized Microsoft Excel (MS-EXCEL) spreadsheets. The expansion of the AAA initiative necessitated a multi-level approach to process evaluation data collection. Monitoring and evaluating AAA requires a collaborative process with multiple stakeholders, including contract staff and community partners, as well as CDC evaluators, campaign implementation staff, and project officers. To ensure prompt, reliable, and uniform quantitative process data is collected across AAA efforts, the AAA evaluation team developed and released the AAA Metrics Database (AAAMD) in 2016.

The AAA evaluation team took a user-centered design approach to the AAAMD, ensuring the interface accounted for users with varying levels of digital and data literacy. It allows CDC to access process data for all AAA efforts in real-time from a single web portal. The AAAMD has been recognized for substantially improving efficiency of quantitative data collection, saving hundreds of hours of labor, and greatly improving productivity.

A panel session with Q&A at the end will provide a detailed walk-through the development, launch, and management of the AAAMD and how it could be used as a model for MERL teams needing to streamline data collection on a similar scale.