White Paper: Increase Data Accuracy With Capture Solutions

By Ken Congdon, Integrated Solutions magazine

If you want to analyze data to solve a problem, the first step is verifying the data is valid. While this may not be difficult if you have less than a hundred pieces of data, the task can seem impossible with over a million pieces of data. This is exactly the problem Dr. Dennis Fisher, professor and director of the Center for Behavioral Research and Services (CBRS) at California State University, Long Beach, faced when he began a recent research program.

The CBRS is a multifunction unit focused on psychosocial research and services related to community health and social problems. The unit was initially formed in 1993 for HIV services and research and has subsequently expanded its focus to additional health-related issues.

In 2005, the CBRS, in partnership with Behavioral Assessment Inc., received a grant from the National Institute on Mental Health to develop an adolescent version of the Hispanic Stress Inventory. To develop this diagnostic instrument, Dr. Fisher and his team are gathering data from four different sites around the country. The team will have 2,500 middle school and high school subjects complete a 23-page booklet with 500 questions, resulting in 1,250,000 pieces of data to be analyzed. "For this study to be successful, we needed to be able to gather the data very quickly and have very clean data," emphasizes Dr. Fisher.

Used with permission from Integrated Solutions magazine.