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Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development

BACKGROUND: The vital role of evaluation as integral to program planning and program development is well supported in the literature, yet we find little evidence of this in health promotion practice. Evaluation is often a requirement for organisations supported by public funds, and is duly undertake...

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Autores principales: Lobo, Roanna, Petrich, Mark, Burns, Sharyn K
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4320438/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25532523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1315
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author Lobo, Roanna
Petrich, Mark
Burns, Sharyn K
author_facet Lobo, Roanna
Petrich, Mark
Burns, Sharyn K
author_sort Lobo, Roanna
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The vital role of evaluation as integral to program planning and program development is well supported in the literature, yet we find little evidence of this in health promotion practice. Evaluation is often a requirement for organisations supported by public funds, and is duly undertaken, however the quality, comprehensiveness and use of evaluation findings are lacking. Practitioner peer-reviewed publications presenting evaluation work are also limited. There are few published examples where evaluation is conducted as part of a comprehensive program planning process or where evaluation findings are used for program development in order to improve health promotion practice. DISCUSSION: For even the smallest of programs, there is a diverse array of evaluation that is possible before, during and after program implementation. Some types of evaluation are less prevalent than others. Data that are easy to collect or that are required for compliance purposes are common. Data related to how and why programs work which could be used to refine and improve programs are less commonly collected. This finding is evident despite numerous resources and frameworks for practitioners on how to conduct effective evaluation and increasing pressure from funders to provide evidence of program effectiveness. We identify several organisational, evaluation capacity and knowledge translation factors which contribute to the limited collection of some types of data. In addition, we offer strategies for improving health promotion program evaluation and we identify collaboration of a range of stakeholders as a critical enabler for improved program evaluation. SUMMARY: Evaluation of health promotion programs does occur and resources for how to conduct evaluation are readily available to practitioners. For the purposes of program development, multi-level strategies involving multiple stakeholders are required to address the organisational, capacity and translational factors that affect practitioners’ ability to undertake adequate evaluation.
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spelling pubmed-43204382015-02-08 Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development Lobo, Roanna Petrich, Mark Burns, Sharyn K BMC Public Health Debate BACKGROUND: The vital role of evaluation as integral to program planning and program development is well supported in the literature, yet we find little evidence of this in health promotion practice. Evaluation is often a requirement for organisations supported by public funds, and is duly undertaken, however the quality, comprehensiveness and use of evaluation findings are lacking. Practitioner peer-reviewed publications presenting evaluation work are also limited. There are few published examples where evaluation is conducted as part of a comprehensive program planning process or where evaluation findings are used for program development in order to improve health promotion practice. DISCUSSION: For even the smallest of programs, there is a diverse array of evaluation that is possible before, during and after program implementation. Some types of evaluation are less prevalent than others. Data that are easy to collect or that are required for compliance purposes are common. Data related to how and why programs work which could be used to refine and improve programs are less commonly collected. This finding is evident despite numerous resources and frameworks for practitioners on how to conduct effective evaluation and increasing pressure from funders to provide evidence of program effectiveness. We identify several organisational, evaluation capacity and knowledge translation factors which contribute to the limited collection of some types of data. In addition, we offer strategies for improving health promotion program evaluation and we identify collaboration of a range of stakeholders as a critical enabler for improved program evaluation. SUMMARY: Evaluation of health promotion programs does occur and resources for how to conduct evaluation are readily available to practitioners. For the purposes of program development, multi-level strategies involving multiple stakeholders are required to address the organisational, capacity and translational factors that affect practitioners’ ability to undertake adequate evaluation. BioMed Central 2014-12-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4320438/ /pubmed/25532523 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1315 Text en © Lobo et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Debate
Lobo, Roanna
Petrich, Mark
Burns, Sharyn K
Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title_full Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title_fullStr Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title_full_unstemmed Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title_short Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
title_sort supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development
topic Debate
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4320438/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25532523
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1315
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