Section 2. Information Gathering and Synthesis

Suppose you wanted to design a house that used very little energy, required relatively few resources to build and maintain, and was affordable for many families. You might have some original ideas about how this could be done, but you would also want to learn from what others have tried. You might read about earth-bermed houses (houses built partly into a hillside or earth mound), solar panels or small wind turbines for producing electricity, energy-efficient windows and insulation, wastewater recycling, and lower-toxicity building materials that incorporate reclaimed wood or metal. You might talk with people who have built or lived in energy-efficient homes to learn about their experiences. You would also want to understand barriers to environmentally sustainable strategies and approaches communities have used to address those barriers. There is a great deal of information available, and gathering relevant evidence and experience can help you identify useful approaches, adapt them to your circumstances, and develop new ideas based on what has already been learned.

The same is true if you are designing an intervention or program to address a community health or other issue, or an evaluation of that program. Other communities and organizations have likely addressed similar issues, with varying results. Understanding what they did, how they did it, the context in which they worked, and what resulted can help you make informed decisions about your own effort. You may find methods or strategies from different sources that can be adapted and combined to fit the priorities, strengths, and conditions of your community. You may also learn that an approach you were considering has repeatedly produced limited or unintended results and should be reconsidered.

Gathering and using others' ideas does not mean giving up your own ideas or the opportunity to innovate. New approaches often develop by building on previous knowledge, experience, and experimentation. Understanding what has already been tried can help you identify opportunities to adapt, improve, or develop new approaches.

This section focuses on gathering information about a community issue and previous efforts to address it, then bringing that information together to inform program and evaluation design. Although this chapter focuses on evaluation, much of the material in this section also applies to planning the program or intervention itself. Program design and evaluation are closely connected.

An evaluation is a form of systematic inquiry: we are trying to understand what works, for whom, under what circumstances, and why. Many of the steps involved in designing an evaluation are also relevant to designing the program being evaluated. Evidence from previous efforts, community knowledge, and new ideas can help shape both an intervention and the questions used to evaluate it. Although this section discusses program design, the same principles apply to evaluation design.

What do we mean by information gathering and synthesis?

Information gathering refers to collecting relevant information about the issue you are addressing and about how other organizations, communities, researchers, and practitioners have responded to it. The more you understand about the issue, its context, and previous approaches, the better prepared you will be to design an effective and appropriate program or intervention.

Information can come from many sources, depending on what you need to learn. In general, you can consult existing published or documented sources and examine real-world examples of programs and interventions that have addressed similar issues. We will introduce both types here and discuss them in more detail later in the section.

• Existing sources. These include published and documented materials that can help you understand an issue or previous attempts to address it. Sources may include scholarly research, professional publications, government reports, community reports, journalism, organizational materials, and statistical or demographic data. Different sources provide different forms of evidence and perspective, so it is useful to consider their purpose, quality, methods, limitations, and relevance to your context.
• Real-world examples. These are programs, policies, practices, or interventions that communities and organizations have actually implemented. Studying them can help you understand what worked, what did not, under what conditions, and why. Information may come from people directly involved in these efforts, program documentation, evaluations, case studies, community reports, or research literature in fields such as community psychology and public health.

Synthesis means bringing together information from multiple sources to form a coherent understanding or approach.

In this section, synthesis refers to analyzing what you have learned through information gathering and combining relevant evidence, community knowledge, practical experience, and ideas into an approach that fits the priorities and context of the community you are working with.

Synthesis requires identifying the functional elements of the programs, policies, or ideas you examine. Functional elements are the core components—such as methods, frameworks, activities, strategies, relationships, policies, and implementation practices—that contribute to how an approach works. Once you understand these elements, you can determine which may be relevant to your community, which may need adaptation, and how they might fit with community knowledge and locally developed ideas.

Information gathering and synthesis are important both when developing a program and when designing an evaluation that can help strengthen it. Both begin with understanding the issue, identifying the people and communities involved, considering the conditions that influence it, and developing an approach for creating change. These decisions help define short- and long-term goals and, in turn, shape the evaluation questions. A meaningful evaluation depends on clearly understanding what the program is intended to accomplish and how it is expected to contribute to change.

Why gather and synthesize information?

If you are developing a program to address a community issue, such as violence prevention or early childhood education, you may already have substantial knowledge and experience related to that issue. Community members, practitioners, and other stakeholders may also have strong ideas about what could work. Why take additional time to review research, examine other programs, and speak with people involved in similar efforts? Because gathering and synthesizing information can help you build on existing knowledge, avoid preventable problems, understand your local context more fully, and strengthen the overall design of your program.

• It can help you avoid repeating avoidable mistakes. Other organizations and communities have likely addressed similar issues. Some efforts may have been effective, some may have produced mixed results, and some may not have worked as intended. Each can provide useful lessons. Understanding previous efforts can help you build on promising approaches while avoiding strategies that have repeatedly created problems or failed to achieve their goals.

Having an idea similar to one that has already been tried is not a problem. In fact, learning that an approach has worked elsewhere may strengthen the case for considering it. At the same time, discovering that a similar approach has repeatedly struggled can help you examine why and decide whether it should be adapted, replaced, or avoided. Learning from previous experience can save time and resources while improving the likelihood that your program will be useful and sustainable.

• It can help you develop a deeper understanding of the issue. Effective action starts with understanding what you are addressing. This may include immediate and underlying causes, historical and structural conditions, community strengths and resources, how people experience the issue, its consequences, and who or what has the ability to influence change.
• It gives you more tools for designing an effective program. Information is one of the most important resources for planning and implementation. Understanding what has worked, for whom, under what conditions, and why can help you select strategies that address multiple dimensions of an issue rather than relying on assumptions or a single approach.
• Most approaches are not one-size-fits-all. The more information you gather, the more approaches, methods, and frameworks you can consider. The goal is not simply to copy another program, but to identify elements that can be appropriately adapted to your community's context, priorities, strengths, and needs.
• It can help you design culturally responsive approaches. Information gathering can help you better understand the histories, cultures, values, languages, strengths, and priorities of the communities involved. It can also help identify approaches that have been used in similar contexts. This information should complement—not replace—direct engagement with community members and their knowledge about what is appropriate and meaningful in their own community.
• Learning from different settings and perspectives can generate new insights and ideas. New approaches often emerge from combining existing knowledge in new ways. Looking across fields, communities, cultures, and geographic settings can expose you to different ways of understanding an issue and expand the range of possible strategies. Those ideas can then be examined and adapted with community members to determine whether they are relevant locally.

When should you gather and synthesize information?

Information gathering and synthesis are important to both program effectiveness and meaningful evaluation. They should begin early in the planning process and continue throughout the life of the program. Ongoing learning can help you identify emerging evidence, changing community conditions, new opportunities, and possible improvements.

Major changes may be easier to assess when they occur after an evaluation cycle, when you have enough information to understand what was working and what was not. At the same time, smaller adjustments may be necessary during implementation to respond to participant feedback, accessibility concerns, emerging risks, or changing circumstances.

There can be tension between continuously adapting a program and determining whether a particular approach is effective. If a method or activity changes substantially during an evaluation period, it may become more difficult to determine which version of the approach contributed to the results.

How much adaptation is appropriate depends partly on the purpose of the program and evaluation. If the primary purpose is to test whether a specific approach works as designed, maintaining consistency may be particularly important. If the primary responsibility is to respond to the needs and well-being of current participants and communities, changes may need to be made as new information becomes available. When changes are made, documenting what changed and why can help evaluators interpret the results.

There can also be ethical issues involved. In research involving new medical treatments, for example, participants may be assigned to different study groups under an approved research protocol and informed-consent process. If evidence shows that an intervention is causing harm, researchers have an obligation to respond appropriately. Likewise, strong evidence that one approach provides substantial benefit may raise ethical questions about continuing to withhold it from other participants. Community programs may raise different ethical considerations, but potential benefits, harms, fairness, informed participation, and participant well-being should always be considered.

Who should gather and synthesize information?

Throughout this chapter, we assume that planning, design, implementation, and evaluation involve multiple stakeholders and forms of knowledge.

Stakeholders in a community program or intervention might include:

• Program participants and community members directly affected by the issue
• Program staff, volunteers, and administrators
• Others whose work or responsibilities intersect with the issue, such as health professionals, educators, public safety personnel, social service providers, or community-based organizations
• Researchers and subject-matter experts
• Local officials and policymakers
• Community advocates, organizers, and leaders

Information gathering

In a participatory process, information gathering can be strengthened by sharing responsibilities according to participants' knowledge, interests, skills, relationships, and opportunities to contribute. Researchers or others with experience reviewing academic literature may take the lead on some evidence reviews. Community members may bring important knowledge about the history of the issue, how it is currently experienced, and which sources or perspectives are most relevant locally. Program staff may have connections with organizations doing similar work. Participants with experience using databases, online research tools, policy analysis, or other methods may support those areas of the work. Roles should be determined collaboratively rather than assigned according to assumptions about people's backgrounds.

Training and support can also expand who is able to participate in different parts of the research process. People who are new to research can learn to interpret demographic information, review program materials, conduct interviews, contact organizations, analyze policy, or use research tools. The goal should be to identify what support, technology, accessibility accommodations, language access, or training participants need to contribute in ways that are meaningful to them.

Synthesis

It is especially important for people with different perspectives to participate in interpreting and synthesizing the information. Participants who bring lived experience or deep community knowledge may recognize patterns, assumptions, or implications that are less visible to professional researchers. Researchers and practitioners may contribute methodological or subject-matter expertise. Bringing these perspectives together can improve both interpretation and decision-making.

Information gathering and synthesis, like the rest of a participatory process, should reflect the priorities, knowledge, interests, strengths, and accessibility needs of stakeholders.

How do you gather and synthesize information?

Gathering and synthesizing information involves several steps. Many can be carried out collaboratively as part of a participatory process, while particular research tasks may be shared among individuals or smaller groups.

Decide what you need to know

The first step in gathering information is determining what you need to understand. Areas to explore may include:

• Details about the issue. These may include immediate and underlying causes; historical, social, economic, organizational, environmental, or policy conditions; effects on individuals and communities; how the issue has changed over time; community strengths and protective factors; and previous efforts to address it.
• How the issue has been addressed elsewhere. This might include evidence-informed or evidence-based practices, promising approaches, community-developed strategies, adaptations used in different settings, and approaches that produced limited or unintended results. Learning why an effort was unsuccessful can be just as valuable as learning why another succeeded.
• People and organizations who can contribute knowledge or support. This may include people with lived experience, community organizations, practitioners, researchers, evaluators, policymakers, advocates, and people involved in previous efforts to address the issue.
• Who is affected locally, and how. Consider which communities or groups experience the issue most directly and whether impacts differ by geography, race, ethnicity, culture, income, disability, age, gender, or other relevant characteristics. Also consider people who may be affected less visibly, including family members, caregivers, service providers, educators, employers, or others connected to those directly affected.
• The importance of the issue to the community. This includes at least two questions:
  • How important do community members consider the issue to be?
  • How and to what extent does the issue affect the community as a whole?
• Community priorities, strengths, and needs related to the issue. What resources, supports, opportunities, relationships, services, policies, or environmental changes could improve the situation? What existing community strengths can be built upon? Which approaches do community members consider acceptable, relevant, and feasible?
• Other contextual information. This may include community history, relationships among groups and organizations, prior experiences with institutions or programs, culture, language, economic conditions, transportation, geography, policy, and other factors relevant to the work.
• Who or what can influence change. Depending on the issue, this may include public officials, policymakers, businesses, property owners, government agencies, schools, employers, health systems, community organizations, funders, service providers, and people directly affected by the issue. It may also include policies, organizational practices, resource allocation, institutional systems, and environmental conditions.

Determine your likely information sources

As discussed above, information can come from published or documented sources as well as real-world experience. Published sources may include scholarly research, professional publications, government and community reports, journalism, organizational documents, and statistical information. Depending on your questions, you may use several types of sources to understand both the evidence and the community context.

The Internet provides access to a vast range of information, including academic research, government data, laws and regulations, program evaluations, organizational reports, community resources, statistical databases, professional guidance, and descriptions of promising practices. Libraries, government databases, university repositories, research organizations, and organizational websites can all be useful starting points.

Online information varies widely in quality. Consider who produced the information, what evidence it uses, when it was published or updated, what methods were used, whether potential conflicts of interest are disclosed, and whether other credible sources support its claims. General-reference websites, social media, discussion forums, and other informal sources can help identify questions, terminology, or additional sources, but important decisions should be supported by information whose credibility and relevance you can evaluate.

Existing sources

Scholarly and professional sources might include:

• Peer-reviewed academic and professional journals
• Academic and professional books
• Doctoral dissertations and master's theses available through universities, libraries, and research repositories
• Papers, posters, reports, and proceedings from academic and professional conferences
• Evidence reviews, professional publications, and reputable science and research journalism
• Newspaper and journalism archives
• Direct communication with researchers, evaluators, practitioners, and others with relevant expertise
• Professional networks, research communities, mailing lists, webinars, and other field-specific forums

Public-facing sources of information might include:

• Books written for general audiences
• Articles in reputable magazines, news outlets, and science or health publications
• Investigative reporting, explanatory journalism, podcasts, documentaries, and other media that provide useful context or identify additional sources

Statistical and demographic information may be available from:

• Census and other government data sources
• Community reports, community health assessments, community report cards, strategic plans, and needs or strengths assessments
• Organizational, agency, school, health system, and administrative data, when those data are available and appropriate to use

News and other media can also call attention to community issues, emerging research, or promising programs. Media coverage usually provides only part of the picture, so it is often most useful as a starting point for identifying additional sources, organizations, researchers, or questions to investigate.

Real-world examples

Potential sources of information about real-world programs and approaches include:

• Program directors, coordinators, and staff
• Colleagues and professional contacts
• Funders and public agencies
• Leaders and members of community coalitions, partnerships, and networks
• Officials or organizations coordinating community-wide efforts
• Community members directly affected by the issue
• Current or former program participants
• People whose work intersects with the program, such as educators, health professionals, social service providers, public safety personnel, or other community partners
• Community members with relevant knowledge, experience, or relationships
• Researchers, practitioners, evaluators, and other people with relevant expertise
• Your own experience and observations in the community

Look broadly when searching for useful models or new ideas. Approaches developed in another field, community, or geographic region may offer concepts that can be adapted to your work. Public health, education, social services, community development, urban planning, behavioral health, environmental health, and other fields often address overlapping social and community conditions. The important question is not whether an approach comes from the same field, but whether its underlying principles and components are relevant and adaptable to your context.

Devise a plan for collecting information

Consider the following questions:

• Who will gather what information? A strong information-gathering team includes different forms of knowledge, experience, relationships, and skills. Responsibilities can be shared according to participants' interests and strengths while also creating opportunities for people to learn new skills. Researchers may contribute experience reviewing academic literature, for example, while community members may have knowledge and relationships that are essential for understanding local history, priorities, and experience. These roles should remain flexible and should not be based on assumptions about who is capable of doing particular kinds of research.
• How will the information be gathered? Written and online sources may be reviewed through libraries, databases, organizational records, and websites. Information from people may be gathered through formal or informal interviews, observation, surveys, public meetings or community conversations, focus groups, participatory methods, or other approaches. Methods should reflect the questions being asked, the time and resources available, participant preferences, accessibility, privacy, and the depth of information needed.
• What support will participants need? People may have different levels of experience with research, technology, academic writing, data interpretation, or particular languages. The group may need interpretation or translation, accessible formats, assistive technology, transportation, childcare, technology access, research training, or support interpreting specialized materials. Identify these needs collaboratively and create ways for everyone to participate meaningfully.
• What is the timeline for information gathering? Learning should continue throughout the life of a project, but the initial information-gathering phase usually needs a clear timeframe so that planning does not indefinitely delay action. The timeline should reflect the urgency and complexity of the issue, community priorities, available resources, external deadlines, and the amount of information needed to make informed decisions.

Collect information

Once the plan is established, begin gathering information. Provide any training, tools, accessibility supports, or resources participants need, and make sure responsibilities are clear. Regular check-ins during the process can help participants share what they are learning, identify gaps, support one another, adjust the research plan, and begin interpreting emerging findings. These conversations can also make synthesis more manageable by allowing the group to process information throughout the research process rather than all at once.

Synthesize: Take it all apart

Synthesis begins by breaking information into useful components, examining how those pieces relate to one another, and identifying which ideas, strategies, and conditions are most relevant to your community.

Three major areas are usually important to consider:

• What is known about the issue itself. What individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, environmental, policy, and structural factors influence the issue? What are its immediate and underlying causes? What strengths or protective factors already exist? Which factors are within the scope of your effort, and which require broader partnerships or systems-level change? What are the potential consequences for individuals and the community if the issue is not addressed?
• The community context of the issue. Who is affected, and in what ways? Are some groups affected differently or disproportionately? How does the issue affect families, relationships, organizations, neighborhoods, and the wider community? What has the community's experience with the issue been? What previous efforts have been attempted? What local strengths and resources can support change? Are there policies, systems, practices, relationships, or environmental conditions that also need to change?
• Previous efforts to address the issue. Information may come from research literature, evaluations, community knowledge, case studies, program documentation, and people directly involved in those efforts. Examine the specific components of each approach. What strategies were used? What training or support was provided? What information and resources were available to participants? What organizational, environmental, or policy changes were involved? What assumptions or principles shaped the approach? Which aspects of the issue did it address? In what kinds of communities and contexts was it used? Who participated? Who benefited, and who may have been left out? What were the short- and long-term outcomes? What conditions contributed to success, limited effectiveness, or unintended consequences?

An unsuccessful program does not necessarily mean that every element of the program was ineffective. Some components may have been useful while others created barriers or were based on incorrect assumptions. A promising strategy may also fail because it was poorly implemented, lacked resources, was not culturally or contextually appropriate, excluded important stakeholders, or was introduced under conditions that made success unlikely. Understanding why an effort produced its results is often more useful than simply labeling it successful or unsuccessful.

It is also important to distinguish between identifying an approach that appears to work and understanding the conditions under which it works. Leadership, staffing, relationships, funding, community trust, organizational capacity, implementation quality, policy context, and other factors can strongly influence outcomes.

When examining programs for ideas, look beyond the program name or overall model. Identify the specific components, relationships, implementation practices, and contextual conditions that appear to contribute to its results.

Synthesize: Put it back together

Analyze what you have learned to determine which ideas and components are appropriate for your community and how they might fit together.

• What approaches have been used with communities or groups whose circumstances are similar to yours? Were successful approaches highly specific to their original setting, or do their underlying principles appear adaptable?
• Which components could be adapted for your context while preserving the elements that make them effective?
• What is missing from the approaches you reviewed? Are important community priorities, strengths, populations, barriers, or structural conditions not being addressed?
• Does the information confirm, challenge, or complicate what you previously believed about the issue?
• What features of your community or situation differ from the settings in which other approaches were developed? How should those differences affect adaptation and implementation?
• What does the information suggest about addressing underlying conditions such as economic inequity, social exclusion, unequal access to resources, or limited decision-making power?
• At what levels did successful efforts focus their strategies—individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, policy, or systems? Which combination is most relevant to your context?
• Perhaps most importantly, how does your community define success? Which approaches came closest to producing the outcomes that stakeholders value, and which components appear most relevant to the priorities and conditions you identified?

Answering these questions can help you identify components that may be appropriate for your community, determine what should be adapted, generate new ideas, and recognize approaches that may not fit your goals or context.

Synthesis is not simply a matter of combining unrelated program components. Begin with a clear framework informed by your vision, mission, community priorities, evidence, and understanding of how change is expected to occur. The components you select should reinforce one another and contribute to a coherent strategy. When elements conflict or are combined without understanding how they function, the resulting program may be difficult to implement or evaluate effectively.

Keep at it

Information gathering and knowledge synthesis should continue throughout the program. New evidence may emerge, community conditions may change, participants may identify new concerns or strengths, and additional approaches may become available. Even when major program changes are postponed until an evaluation cycle is complete, continuing to learn helps prepare the program for thoughtful adaptation. Ongoing reflection and learning can help keep the work responsive, relevant, and effective.

In Summary

Gathering existing information about a community issue and previous efforts to address it is an important part of planning both programs and evaluations. Bringing together research evidence, community knowledge, lived experience, lessons from previous efforts, and local context can help you design an approach that builds on what has been learned while creating room for local adaptation and innovation.

Information gathering and synthesis should continue throughout the life of the program. Ongoing learning can help communities and organizations understand changing conditions, strengthen promising approaches, recognize ineffective or harmful strategies, and adapt the work in ways that remain responsive to community priorities and evidence.