Development of policy-directed, practical, evidence-based guidance for public health intervention evaluation

Abstract

Background: Quality useable guidance on the evaluation of public health programs for practitioners would facilitate the identification of effective, and ineffective services according to a variety of criteria. Aims and methods: 1. To systematically collect available guidance to write a “Catalogue of available Public Health Evaluation Guidance†2. Interview public health practitioners to identify what kind of evaluation training and materials would be of most use. 3. Use evidence collected for aims 1 and 2 to consider how to fill the gaps in the current provision. Expected results: Initial results will include a catalogue of available Public Health Evaluation Guidance. This will be a resource in itself for public health practitioners. Interviews with practitioners will identify gaps in existing guidance documents, and highlight areas that need to be developed. Progress to date: We have systematically reviewed the literature and identified documents that can be used to support the evaluation of complex health interventions, our initial search identified 402 documents. These are currently being reviewed and summarised. Interviews have been completed with 10 public health practitioners. Data is currently being analysed.