Importance of Evaluation for Health Promotional Plans
Health promotional plan is the strategy or intervention applying which an entire community or population living in the area can receive the benefit of the healthcare intervention. However, the degree of achievement could be assessed only by assessing the public health programs acceptability and success rate (Posavac 2015). There are several evaluation methods using which the achievement of the health promotional plan is determined. These are important to determine the efficacy, identify the means of improvement and justify the use of resources to determine unexpected outcomes (Wierenga et al. 2013).
While discussing the importance of evaluation for health promotional plan, it should be discussed that determining the efficacy and ability of the healthcare promotional plan is an important aspect as health promotional plans require maximum acceptability and should be able to reach to maximum number of people in population or community (Eldredge et al. 2016). Therefore, for this purpose, it is important to determine the outcome or impact evaluation. The evaluation methods help to assess the achievement of long-term and short-term goals and objectives and using these the change in people and their quality of life, behavior and health condition can be determined (Bauman and Nutbeam 2013). On the other hand, the evaluation process also helps the people to understand the ability of the promotional event to affect a major population. Besides these, the healthcare professionals carrying out such promotional program can understand the change they need to impose on the awareness, behavior, attitude and knowledge of people taking part in the promotional program (Wierenga et al. 2013). Further, evaluation is also important in the developmental or primary stages of program development or evaluation as it provides information about the information about the objectives, goals and improving program dynamics.
There are several types of evaluatio0n method using which the holistic development, impact, efficacy and accountability of the health promotional plan in the population is assessed (Bauman and Nutbeam 2013). As each of the health promotional program uses different approach and different strategy for assessment, data collection measurement processes, the evaluation method for each of the health promotional campaign also varies (Posavac 2015). Further, depending on the setting of the health promotional program such as rural or urban, the framework for evaluation process also varies. In this section, different type of health promotional evaluation process will be discussed with the help of several recent research articles so that authenticity of the information could be determined (Eldredge et al. 2016).
Types of Evaluation Methods
The first type of evaluation method used for evaluation process is the impact evaluation. This process is carried out in both rural and urban setting and in this process, people taken part in the health promotional campaign is provided with a questionnaire or asked to take part in the interview process so that the ability of the health promotional program to improve their quality of life and make their health and wellbeing improved could be identified (Neiger et al. 2013). Further, it also helps in identification of the campaigns ability in spreading awareness, improving people’s health and increasing their health education (Neiger et al. 2013).
Outcome evaluation is the second type of evaluation method which could also be applied in rural and urban locations with few or large amount of population, as the primary role of this evaluation method is to understand the outcomes provided by this health promotional campaign and the ability of the outcome to make the life of people undertaking this promotional campaign improved (Lewis 2015). This is the direct measure of changes in health condition, quality of life, behavior and achievement of program objective. Therefore, focusing on both short- and long-term goals this evaluation method determines a holistic evaluation of the process (Lewis 2015).
Process evaluation is the third evaluation method which could be used for the assessment of health promotional programs ability to provide benefit to the people using these interventions. This is a method using which the process, quality and quantity of the process could be achieved (Baxter et al. 2014). This evaluation method is different for different type of settings such as rural and urban as they follow different strategy to conduct the process of health promotional program. However, the quality and quantity related evaluation remains the same for any kind of setting. Further, it should be mentioned that this is a post program evaluation method like other two methods mentioned in the above section (Baxter et al. 2014).
The final evaluation method which will be discussed in this section is the formative evaluation method. This is the most important evaluation method which should be applied both in rural and urban settings and should be carried out both pre-program and post program scenario so that organizers could understand the aspects which needs improvement and development for conduction of successful health promotional program (Wierenga et al. 2013). Further, in post-program scenario, it helps in the identification and determination of goals using which, the achievement of goals, its ability to impact people’s life and improvement required for the program could be identified (Wierenga et al. 2013).
Evaluation of a volunteer community-based health worker program for providing contraceptive services in Madagascar
This paper intends to evaluate a community based program that was designed to promote maternal health and family planning within the remote areas of Madagascar (Gallo et al. 2013). The study design adapted a cross sectional evaluation design that proceeded with 100 trained community health workers conducting contraceptive counselling across various community locations (Gallo et al. 2013). The community health workers working at various locations were interviewed based upon elements such as demographics, recruitment, training and knowledge that they possessed about methods of contraception. Further, the workers were evaluated on the basis of their client encounters and compared to uninstructed volunteers by supervisors. A performance score was established on the basis of (0-100%) in order to evaluate the efficiency output of the employees in conducting the contraceptive counselling. The findings revealed an impressive performance score of 73.9% in the case of instructed community health workers who were able to provide efficient contraceptive services (Gallo et al. 2013). It can thus be said that the evaluation in this case was carried out on the basis of the performance score, which seemed appropriate. However, research studies have stated that better evaluation strategies can be adapted in order to conduct successful evaluation to judge the efficacy of a program.
In order to evaluate the process system and the ability of it to attain the objectives, research studies have suggested evaluation strategies such as use of key performance indicators (Danks and Allen, 2014). In this case, to significantly access the process system the organizers of the community program could have successfully designed KPI tools that would have helped in analysing the various elements of performance output. As mentioned by Fink (2015), in order to conduct a successful community program, it is extremely important to measure the level of impact created. In other words, the success rate of a program depends upon the strength of the impact.
Qualitative interviews with open ended questions, questionnaires and survey responses have been considered as effective tools to measure the impact value of a designed program (Posavac 2015). The rational of using survey responses or qualitative interviews include the extraction of direct feedback from the people that help in accessing the strength and weakness of a program (Posavac 2015). Further, in order to evaluate the feasibility of the achieved outcome, statistical comparison can be made on the basis of previously collected data and the new findings. Further, the evaluation of the number of people attending the program could successfully help in the detection of the effectiveness of the program. Therefore, on closely accessing the research paper that has been chosen for evaluation, it can be said that the method chosen for evaluation on the basis of performance score could have been refined. In order to conduct a successful community program it is important to evaluate the effectiveness on the basis of the process, impact and the outcome. It can hence be stated that the evaluation scheme could have been modified. Inclusion of a survey or questionnaire response from the people who attended the program could have revealed the positive impact created by the program.
Further, considering the number of the people attending the program and maintaining a record of it could have helped in significantly understanding the level to which the program yielded a successful output (Busse et al 2015). Inclusion of KPI tools instead of performance scores could have helped in accessing the level of performance of the community program workers in a better manner and at the same time could have also helped in analysing the strength and weakness of the training imparted to the workers. Therefore, it can be said that the effectiveness of a community program depends upon the extent to which it can create a positive impact in convincing a group of individuals within a community for a particular cause. The primary objective of community programs are based on the awareness level that they can create among people (Busse et al. 2014). Therefore evaluation measures should incorporate tools that would help in critically accessing the feasibility of the objective, the level of impact and the success output of the devised program. On the basis of successful evaluation, steps could be undertaken to modify the objectives of the program to reinforce a positive effect.
References:
Bauman, A. and Nutbeam, D., 2013. Evaluation in a nutshell: a practical guide to the evaluation of health promotion programs. Mcgraw hill.
Baxter, S., Sanderson, K., Venn, A.J., Blizzard, C.L. and Palmer, A.J., 2014. The relationship between return on investment and quality of study methodology in workplace health promotion programs. American Journal of Health Promotion, 28(6), pp.347-363.
Busse, H., Aboneh, E.A. and Tefera, G., 2014. Learning from developing countries in strengthening health systems: an evaluation of personal and professional impact among global health volunteers at Addis Ababa University’s Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (Ethiopia). Globalization and health, 10(1), p.64.
Danks, S. and Allen, J., 2014. Performance?Based Rubrics for Measuring Organizational Strategy and Program Implementation. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 27(1), pp.33-49.
Eldredge, L.K.B., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G. and Parcel, G.S., 2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Fink, A., 2015. How to conduct surveys: A step-by-step guide. Sage Publications.pp.50-56
Gallo, M.F., Walldorf, J., Kolesar, R., Agarwal, A., Kourtis, A.P., Jamieson, D.J. and Finlay, A., 2013. Evaluation of a volunteer community-based health worker program for providing contraceptive services in Madagascar. Contraception, 88(5), pp.657-665.
Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.
Neiger, B.L., Thackeray, R., Burton, S.H., Giraud-Carrier, C.G. and Fagen, M.C., 2013. Evaluating social media’s capacity to develop engaged audiences in health promotion settings: use of Twitter metrics as a case study. Health promotion practice, 14(2), pp.157-162.
Posavac, E.J., 2015. Program evaluation: Methods and case studies. Routledge.
Posavac, E.J., 2015. Program evaluation: Methods and case studies. Routledge,pp.69
Wierenga, D., Engbers, L.H., Van Empelen, P., Duijts, S., Hildebrandt, V.H. and Van Mechelen, W., 2013. What is actually measured in process evaluations for worksite health promotion programs: a systematic review. BMC public health, 13(1), p.1190.
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