Using decision methods to examine the potential impact of intersectoral action programs

OBJECTIVES: In public health today, there is a widespread call for intersectoral action (ISA) programs, in which two or more sectors cooperate to address a problem. This trend raises a question of how to appropriately assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ISA programs. To assess the impact of ISA, evaluation methods should provide a framework for simultaneously considering the impact of two or more interventions when selecting from a portfolio of programs. There is a gap in literature on such methods. In this research note, from a narrative review, we report and describe methods that could be useful for evaluating ISA programs. Subsequently, we present a hypothetical case study to demonstrate the use of these methods. RESULTS: We identified four methods that have potential to assess the joint impact of multiple interventions: economic evaluation, portfolio analysis, multiple-criteria decision analysis, and programme budgeting and marginal analysis. To keep pace with the desire to use strong evidence to inform the selection and design of ISA programs, methods must evolve to support these initiatives. This research note seeks to begin a dialogue on existing decision methods which may be used to assist decision makers with funding and resource allocation decisions of ISA programs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-018-3609-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.