Assessing CHaRT's Effectiveness and Barriers and Facilitators of Its Implementation

Not Applicable

Not yet recruiting

• Conditions: Extreme Heat; Heat Health; Extreme Heat Waves; Heat; Emergency Preparedness; Disaster Management; Disaster Planning; Disasters

• Registration Number: NCT06971978
• Lead Sponsor: University of Washington

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if an innovative online decision support tool (CHaRT) that provides localized health risk assessment for extreme heat at the census tract level helps local health departments plan and prepare for extreme heat by identifying risk drivers in their jurisdictions, highlighting interventions that are effective for their jurisdiction's risk profile, and providing information regarding intervention implementation. This trial will evaluate barriers and facilitators of the tool's implementation. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Does a health department using the tool have better reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of heat-health activities compared with an information-only control?

2. What are the barriers and facilitators of CHaRT's implementation?

Researchers will compare health departments using CHaRT to health departments using provided heat-health information only.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2025-05-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-05-06
• Study First Posted: 2025-05-14
• Status Verified: 2025-06
• Study Start: 2025-06
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-06-03
• Last Update Posted: 2025-06-05
• Primary Completion: 2026-08
• Study Completion: 2027-08

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 30

Inclusion Criteria

• Local (city or county) health department
• Local (i.e., city or county) health department with at least partial autonomy to pursue the development and implementation of heat-health activities (i.e., not a state where all public health activities are administered at a state level)
• Availability of a staff member to participate in all elements of the trial. Local health department staff responsible for planning and implementing programming to protect constituents from extreme heat.
• Adults whose demographics and health status will mirror those of the general population.
• Current employees of included health departments aged 18 or greater

Exclusion Criteria

• Being in a state where public health activities are exclusively managed at a state level and not having staff availability to participate
• Children and prisoners

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Baseline assessment: demographics	Baseline	All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to organizational demographics and demographics of the communities that the organization serves.
Baseline assessment: current activities	Baseline	All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to the organization's current activities relevant to extreme heat, including surveillance and program evaluation activities.
Baseline assessment: implementation factors	Baseline	All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to contextual and organizational factors that may affect intervention implementation.
Post-intervention survey: demographics	One year after the intervention begins.	Meaningful changes in the demographics of the organization or service area.
Post-intervention survey: activities	One year after the intervention begins.	The the post-intervention assessment will query participants regarding meaningful changes in the organization's activities and profile (e.g., the occurrence of a regional disaster that disrupted service provision across the organization).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Key informant interviews	The key informant interviews will be completed one year after the intervention begins.	Barriers and facilitators of CHaRT implementation and implementation outcomes using linkages to theoretical frameworks. Investigators will conduct key informant interviews (KIIs) with all 15 of the primary site contacts for the sites randomized to the intervention group. In this case, investigators will reference the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as a source of constructs to measure factors affecting CHaRT's implementation.