In the Aging and Healthy Policy (AHP) Laboratory, Professor Julie Bobitt and her team focus on the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies that help individuals age successfully. Professor Bobitt and her team have been working for some time to illuminate the public health implications of recreational and medical cannabis use among older persons. They are currently using REDCap in their work with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to survey adults age 60 and older enrolled in their Medical Cannabis Patient Program (MCPP). She explains how REDCap is ideal for her research due to the HIPAA-classified nature of the data and the sensitivity around medical cannabis.
Tell us briefly about your research project. We have worked with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to survey adults age 60 and older enrolled in their Medical Cannabis Patient Program (MCPP). The purpose of our survey was to collect information about their attitudes about cannabis for medical purposes; methods of using including frequency and type; and health outcomes they have experienced as a result of medical cannabis use.
Explain how you use REDCap in your research. We had to be very careful with the enrollee data. IDPH could not allow us to see participant names and we needed to protect anonymous responses, so we developed our survey and provided IDPH with a link. IDPH then sent the survey link to all of their actively enrolled participants over age 60. We received over 4,000 responses.
Share why you chose REDCap or why you would recommend REDCap to colleagues. We were conceptualizing this project when REDCap was first promoted by IHSI. After attending an information sessionsession, we thought this would be better for us than Qualtrics. We liked that it was already HIPAA approved and we felt it would be a more secure way to collect our data. I enjoy the way the data is presented in either an excel format or by charts/graphs that are already made. If I want to check on one aspect of my data, I can use the stats & charts feature to quickly visualize a data point.
