The Need for Evaluation of Public Health Programs

Discuss the need for evaluation of public health programs. Describe your proposed process
and outcome measures. What potential tools can be used to collect these measures?

The Need for Evaluation of Public Health Programs
According to Smith & Ory (2014), the evaluation of public health programs or interventions
plays a fundamental role in the assessment of the added value through the facilitation of
processes such as the determination of the effectiveness obtained. Additionally, evaluation brings
along the assessment and improvement of the quality of the program or intervention hence
leading to the identification of the success levels through the accomplishment of endeavored
goals (Smith & Ory, 2014). Similarly, evaluation significantly contributes to the determination of
whether the correct measures were employed in gauging the effectiveness. As such, a program
intended to raise awareness on the risk factors associated with obesity among adolescents would
involve process and outcome evaluation measures that determine whether the desired goals were
achieved.
On the one hand, process evaluation would include answering questions such as the
specific interventions applied in addressing the obesity menace. Moreover, the tools used to
collect these measures would include indicators that depict whether the intervention worked or
not (Smith & Ory, 2014). These indicators would further contribute to the determination of the
challenges encountered during the implementation and delivery of the intervention. Similarly,
outcome evaluation of the program or intervention would focus on answering questions such as
whether it succeeded in helping the target population reduce incidences of obesity among

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adolescents. As a result, the tools that would be used include indicators that highlight the
program’s ability to achieve desired goals by comparing its effectiveness against several groups
(Smith & Ory, 2014). These would be followed closely by the use of tools that focus on
determining the aspects of the program that yielded more benefits.

References

Smith, M. L., & Ory, M. G. (2014). Measuring Success: Evaluation Article Types for the Public
Health Education and Promotion Section of Frontiers in Public Health. Frontiers in
Public Health, 2.