Evaluating a national technical assistance program using network analysis

(Article available here).

Multiple federal organizations fund networks of academic centers across the United States to conduct research, provide technical assistance, and support the transition of study findings from research into clinical practice or policy.

One of the largest such systems currently operating in the USA is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) TTC Network, which is composed of 39 centers covering addiction treatment (ATTC), prevention (PTTC), and mental health (MHTTC), with a combined grant-cycle (5-year) budget of approximately US $130 million.

(Webpage for the TTC program available here).

In 2019, Prevention Insights (in the Department of Applied Health Science at Indiana University-Bloomington at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington ) received a grant to conduct a robust, external evaluation of the TTC network.

One component of that project was an organizational network analysis (ONA) of the TTC Network, which allowed us to examine questions to facilitate a better understanding of how the Network functions.

On reflection, this approach worked well for examining this closed ("whole") Network.

ONA enabled potentially useful feedback to be delivered to SAMHSA that may not have been readily identifiable using other types of formative evaluation.

We were also able to interrogate some assumptions about center funding, such as the idea (for which we did not find support) that funding multiple Centers at a single grant recipient (e.g., university) may reduce overall interactivity of those centers.

Others who contributed include Ruth Gassman , Kaitlyn Reho, Jeffrey Roberts, Susan Heil , Lilian Golzarri Arroyo , and Kate Eddens .