University Project Planning and Evaluation: Public Health Programs

This report delves into the critical aspects of project planning and evaluation within the realm of public health programs. It begins by highlighting the increasing complexity of these programs and the need for robust evaluation methods, particularly in light of dynamic environments and stakeholder demands. The report then outlines the three primary types of evaluation: process, impact, and outcome. Process evaluation assesses program development and delivery, impact evaluation measures immediate effects, and outcome evaluation quantifies long-term effects and program goal achievement. The report uses a study by Philip, Kannan and Parambil (2018) to illustrate community-based interventions for disease prevention, emphasizing the role of health influencers and the application of evaluation processes like process, impact, and outcome evaluations. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of these evaluations in refining intervention strategies and ensuring program effectiveness.

Running head: PROJECT PLANNING AND EVALUATION
Project planning and evaluation
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1PROJECT PLANNING AND EVALUATION
Question 1:
The main aim due to which the public health programs are framed is to control or prevent
death, disability, injury and diseases, It is important to mention that over the passage of time the
task of framing and formulating public health policies have become complex due to the fact that
the programs itself have become complex as well. Nowadays, the public health programs now
address a large number of problems and the solution rendered are for the organizations and a
large number of community members. The traditional form of public health programs is used to
be solved with the changes in the sanitary system and with vaccination. However, the present-
day public health programs involve difficult and significant changes in public health attitudes
that deal with the protective/risk behaviour of the providers/ or the consumers (Kaur, Prinja and
Kumar 2015). Whereas, it is also a highlighting fact that the present- day public health programs
operate within an environment that has become more complex in comparison to the past. It has
been seen that programs that work best with certain settings fail miserably with the other settings
that involve the inter-organizational settings, interpersonal, demographic, socio-economic and
fiscal setting. It is important to mention that the public health programs have now become
complex and the demands for the stakeholders and the policymakers have increased to a great
extent. The dynamic environment in which the public health programs operate means that there
needs to be a strong evaluation of the program ever before (Cdc.gov 2019).
Question 2:
The three major types of evaluation are process evaluation, impact evaluation and outcome
evaluation.
Process evaluation- this evaluation procedure is used to assess the different elements of
development and delivery of a program. In other words, the reach, appropriateness and the

2PROJECT PLANNING AND EVALUATION
quality of the program. This type of evaluation procedure can be used through the entire life of
the program which means from the planning process to the end of the delivery of the program.
Once the program is in the stage of implementation, the process evaluation can be beneficial in
tracking the level of implementation and reach of the program. The evaluation method is
important in health promotion programming because it maximizes the likelihood of a program to
get success as it works as early warning indicator about what might go wrong; this evaluation
method allows the monitor the progress of the public health program (Moore et al., 2014).
Impact evaluation- It can be used to measure the immediate effects of the program and
therefore, it can be used to complete the stages of implementation. This evaluation process
measures the degree up to which the objectives of the program are met. Therefore, this fact
highlights that the public health programs must be written in a way that will enable the
evaluation of the program and to the extent to which it is achieved. Including the SMART
objectives within the program can effectively impact the public health policy. This evaluation
method provides policy evidence which can be used in the funding and policy decisions
(Spiegelman 2016).
Outcome evaluation- It is used to measure and quantify the l0ong term effects of the
public health programs and the judgements related to it that highlights the extent to which the
goals of the program are achieved. It is important to mention that the long- term effects of the
public health program might include the reduction in the prevalence or incidence of the health
conditions, improvement in the quality of life, changes in the behaviour and changes in mortality
as well as changes in environmental conditions. This kind of evaluation provides insight into
whether the program will be effective or not in meeting the objectives of the public health
program (Fridrich Jenny and Bauer 2015).

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Question 3:
A study by Philip, Kannan and Parambil (2018), has been conducted which highlighted
the non-communicable disease prevention and the and the need to understand the different types
of the interventions that are developed as well as implemented in the different parts of the world.
In studies that highlighted the community-based intervention for the cancer prevention
mentioned that the community health workers, patient navigators, general practitioners and the
peer leaders are the ones that delivered the interventions. The strategies that were used for the
intervention include the education sessions, health fairs, panel discussions, and fellowship
discussions. The community-based intervention included randomized control trial and the
remaining studies were just intervention studies that lacked the control. In this study, health
influencers are used which are none other than the service providers, friends, colleagues, family
and companion. These health influencers were five the requisite amount of training for tobacco
cessation so that they can persuade a tobacco user to give up this habit. It is important to mention
that the randomized control trial is the ones that are used to evaluate community intervention.
However, it can be said that the ethical and practical issues go against it (Philip, Kannan and
Parambil 2018).
The evaluation process is conducted by the usage of the process evaluation, impact and
outcome evaluation. The authors of this study have proceeded with the IIHP evaluation process
that includes the process, impact and outcome evaluation processes. It is important to mention
that the process evaluation process is the fundamental part of the IHHP. The intervention
strategies are critical by bringing changes in the improvement and the modification strategies of
the intervention strategies. The IHHP procedure of evaluation focused on stress management,

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tobacco control, and the increased amount of physical activity as well as a healthy diet. It is
important to mention that the intervention highlighted and targeted the populations and the
individuals that are based on the environment and the results are obtained through the needs
assessment, baseline surveys, intervention that targets the individuals and it also includes the
existing health services. The process evaluation included the deployment of qualitative and
quantitative methods in order to assess the intervention. Which means the usage of the different
types of activities that comply with the objectives of the interventions (Rabiei et al. 2009).

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Reference
Cdc.gov, 2019. Introduction to Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs. [online]
Cdc.gov. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/eval/guide/CDCEvalManual.pdf [Accessed 15 May
2019].
Fridrich, A., Jenny, G.J. and Bauer, G.F., 2015. The context, process, and outcome evaluation
model for organisational health interventions. BioMed research international, 2015.
Kaur, M., Prinja, S. and Kumar, R., 2015. Evaluating the performance of health promotion
interventions. The Indian journal of medical research, 142(2), p.109.
Moore, G., Audrey, S., Barker, M., Bond, L., Bonell, C., Cooper, C., Hardeman, W., Moore, L.,
O'Cathain, A., Tinati, T. and Wight, D., 2014. Process evaluation in complex public health
intervention studies: the need for guidance.
Philip, P.M., Kannan, S. and Parambil, N.A., 2018. Community-based interventions for health
promotion and disease prevention in noncommunicable diseases: A narrative review. Journal of
education and health promotion, 7 (141), pp.202-207.
Rabiei, K., Kelishadi, R., Sarrafzadegan, N., Abedi, H.A., Alavi, M., Heidari, K., Bahonar, A.,
Boshtam, M., Zare, K. and Sadeghi, S., 2009. Process evaluation of a community-based program
for prevention and control of non-communicable disease in a developing country: The Isfahan
Healthy Heart Program, Iran. BMC Public Health, 9(1), p.57.
Spiegelman, D., 2016. Evaluating public health interventions: 1. Examples, definitions, and a
personal note. American journal of public health, 106(1), pp.70-73.