# Developing and Testing a Social Network Data Capture Tool to Improve Partner Services

> **NIH NIH R34** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $276,500

## Abstract

Project Summary
Across HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), the real-time understanding of transmission networks of
recently infected individuals is vital for the rapid diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of new cases, and in
providing insight into how the disease is transmitted, which populations are at highest risk, and who should be
targeted for intervention. One of the most effective and widely implemented methods for understanding and
intervening upon transmission networks is Partner Services - or interviewing a person newly diagnosed with
HIV in order to identify any potentially exposed partners and notify, test, and if necessary, connect those
partners to care. Backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an evidence-based intervention
for those newly diagnosed with HIV or STIs, Partner Services is a foundational public health response shown
to be highly effective at slowing the spread of HIV. Unfortunately, the implementation of Partner Services by
public health departments is often a challenge. Health departments have limited financial and logistical
resources, disease investigators balance competing priorities of building relational trust while simultaneously
recording detailed data, and by its nature, sexual and drug network data is complicated and poses enormous
methodological challenges during data capture, processing, and storage. In response to similar difficulties in
the collection of social network research data, our team has built a free open-source and NIH-funded software
suite for researchers, called Network Canvas. By building on the strengths of our existing software tool, we
next hope to build a free and open-source software tool that will simplify and modernize disease investigation
for public health officials conducting Partner Services, and this proposed R34 will support the necessary
formative work. In particular, we will characterize the needs of public health departments conducting Partner
Services and develop a detailed specification of the software reconfiguration necessary to meet these needs.
We will also develop and implement a pilot of the software within Partner Services at the Chicago Department
of Public Health in order to demonstrate feasibility, acceptability, and gather preliminary evidence of efficacy.
We will conduct this work guided by Active Implementation Frameworks which utilize a staged-approach and
strong engagement with local (e.g., Chicago Department of Public Health) and national stakeholders (e.g.,
National Coalition of STD Directors) to explore, install, and implement a software pilot into Partner Services.
This project will provide the formative work necessary to inform the development of a future full-scale, R01-
level multi-site stepped wedge implementation trial in which we will evaluate the effectiveness of Network
Canvas in improving outcomes for Partner Services. Finally, this R34 is in the line with PA-18-780 to develop
and test a novel intervention to improv...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10082089
- **Project number:** 1R34DA052216-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michelle Birkett
- **Activity code:** R34 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $276,500
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10082089

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10082089, Developing and Testing a Social Network Data Capture Tool to Improve Partner Services (1R34DA052216-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10082089. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*