We present an organizational capacity building program that is a systemic approach to training professionals, creating organizational policies and practices, and enhancing the physical environment with materials about sexual and reproductive health. The evaluation of four different organizations showed increases over six months in: staff reports…

Background: Community health efforts often include outreach activities designed to increase awareness and ensure uptake of services or programs. Yet, few comprehensive outreach evaluations exist, particularly those designed to improve access to and use of mental health services. Purpose: This article summarizes the use of two established…

In 1997, American Evaluation Association member George Grob, now retired from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and currently President of the Center for Public Program Evaluation, made a testimony on Medicare home health care fraud and abuse before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. The occasion was to announce the…

From 2004-2008, capacity to conduct program evaluation was built among the "Network for a Healthy California's" 48 largest local partners. Capacity building was done within a framework of Empowerment Evaluation and Utility-Focused evaluation. Tools included: a Scope of Work template, a handbook, a compendium of surveys, an evaluation…

Increasingly, staff members in community and public health programs and projects are required to undertake evaluation activities. There is, however, limited capacity for, and understanding of, evaluation within this workforce. Building the capability of individual workers and thereby contributing to the overall capacity among the community and…

This bibliography brings together much of the literature prepared by individuals, organizations, and agencies that have designed or are attempting to design instruments for the definition and measurement of the levels of health within a given population. It includes citations and abstracts of documents identified by the National Health Planning…

A new approach is presented to the organization and supervision of health fairs. The "Health Education Carnival" differs from the health fair in two ways: (1) It does not include health screening tests; and (2) Allied health professionals attend the fair in costume. Evaluation techniques and follow-up methods for the health carnival are…

A literature review describes evaluation activities in mental health services in financial, programmatic/clinical, and new constituency areas. Expanding reimbursement for alternative mental health services is offered as a way of developing a formal structure to ensure better utilization of evaluation results. (SLD)

The epidemiological method of case-control study is described, and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed for use in health program evaluation. Examples are reviewed, with a step-by-step description of the method. Potential applications are discussed, including worksite health promotions, screening programs, and large-scale public health…

Newborn screening is considered a highly successful public health program that has resulted in the reduction of mortality, mental retardation, and other serious disabilities in thousands of children since the introduction of screening for phenylketonuria (PKU) in the 1960s. Programs are based in state public health departments such that each state…

This monograph derives from a conference sponsored by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. The goals of the conference were (1) to establish channels of communication between health care evaluators from different disciplines and from different countries in the Americas, and (2) to promote an exchange of…

This report briefly describes and evaluates a program designed to provide medical and public health consultation to Project Head Start in Massachusetts. The program consisted of teams of community medical and public health professionals made available to Head Start programs for planning and implementation of health programs, and education and…

The theme of this serial issue is helping individuals involved in community health programs at the local level to devise and apply a protocol for the evaluation of a community health program. In the opening sections of the issue evaluation is defined, the difference between a direct quantifying measure and an indicator is clarified, obstacles to…