What is MAP-IT? ___MAP-IT is a framework that can be used to plan and evaluate public health interventions in a community. ___MAP-IT has five steps: Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about the health of your community into a coalition. Assess the areas of greatest need in your community, as well as the resources and other strengths that you can tap into to address those areas. Plan your approach: start with a vision of where you want to be as a community; then add strategies and action steps to help you achieve that vision. Implement your plan using concrete action steps that can be monitored and will make a difference. Track your progress over time. Why use MAP-IT? ___It involves all stakeholders, making for a widely-supported and community-owned effort. ___It assesses assets as well as needs, and looks for ways to use them. ___Assessment means that the effort will start from the reality of the community, rather than from some preconceived idea of what’s necessary or what resources are available. ___It produces a comprehensive and specific plan, with reasonable timelines, assigned responsibility, clear objectives, and well-defined action steps related to an overall strategy. ___It incorporates evaluation from the beginning, allowing adjustment when necessary. How do you use MAP-IT? Mobilize ___Consider what you want coalition partners to do and how the coalition might be organized. ___Brainstorm potential partners. ___Recruit coalition members. ___Create a vision for the coalition. Assess ___Collect locally available data about resources and needs. ___Collect information from public and archival sources. ___Determine what issues are most important to community residents and key stakeholders. ___Identify community assets, including people, skills, capacity and capacity building, space, organizations and institutions, knowledge, funds, etc. ___Based on data and community priorities, prioritize needs by consensus. ___Establish baseline data Plan ___Choose the issue(s) the initiative will work on. ___Set clear objectives. ___For each objective, develop an action plan that includes: A strategy and tactics A timeline with reasonable time targets for each phase of the strategy The responsible parties and their roles and tasks Indicators and/or other measures of progress Implement ___Identify an individual or organization to serve as the coordinating point for the implementation of the initiative. ___Make sure that everyone involved knows what’s going on and what everyone else is doing. ___Use the media and other channels to inform the community about the work of the initiative. Track ___Start your evaluation and monitoring at the very beginning of your initiative, if possible. ___Set up a system for gathering data. ___Consider: Data Quality Limitations of self-reported data Data validity and reliability Data availability ___Organize and analyze data on a regular basis, so that you can make appropriate adjustments in your work as time goes on. ___Share progress and successes with the community.
