30 May, 2013

Progressing towards an international consensus on data modelling for mass gathering and mass participation events

This presentation was undertaken by Adam Lund for this research team.

ABSTRACT
There is call for increased attention to foundational theory building to support the evidence base for mass gathering medicine/health (MGM/H). There is a need for a more consistent approach to data collection, case reporting, and research methodology. Recently publications highlight the need for agreement on data points across varying MGM/H contexts.

This discussion aims to present a supportive rather than prescriptive process of building consensus that will support MGM/H researchers and clinicians to produce work with value to international events. The authors propose an ongoing, iterative, collaborative process with the goal of developing and maintaining consensus on core concepts, methodology, and reporting in MGM/H research and evaluation. Stakeholder input will be sought internationally from researchers, advocacy groups, and operational personnel who may undertake literature reviews, research collaboration, consensus meetings, as well as iterative document creation and review.

The authors propose five conceptual categories as a starting point for analysis and discussion: 1) Event & Community (prospective & retrospective) - describing events so events in different parts of the world can be compared reliably; 2) Health Team Resources - describing personnel, equipment, assets, policies, protocols and other factors that impact on-site care; 3) Patient - describing patient encounters, history, findings, treatment, response, and outcome; supporting a minimum common set of descriptors of patient factors; 4) Reporting - standardized descriptive, summative, or analytic reporting “fields” and formats that would permit a more consistent understanding of events and increase the ability to perform meta-analyses of events; and, 5) Overview of Research Methodologies – review and categorization of common methodologies in the MGM/H literature, including summarization of best practices to support future inquiry into MGM/H.

This proposed method of consensus will allow mass gathering health science to become more robust and be generalizable to other MGM/H events.



Lund A, Turris S, Bowles R, Gutman S, Hutton A, Ranse J, Arbon P. (2013). Progressing towards an international consensus on data modelling for mass gathering and mass participation events; paper presented at the 18th World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine, Manchester, UK, May.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More