Health Program Planning and Evaluation

Answer

Health Program Planning and Evaluation

1. At each level of the public health pyramid, identify at least two factors that can affect the acquisition of informed consent from those involved in providing evaluation data about a health program.

Informed consent is a voluntary arrangement or an agreement to take part in a research program to provide certain useful information.  However, there are factors that affect the acquisition of informed consent from individuals who should provide important data during a research trial. Such factors can be obtained from health impact pyramid, a framework that guides health promotion efforts.  The pyramid has five levels of interventions that prevents poor health outcome and promotes wellbeing of people (Issel & Wells, 2018). At social economic factors level some of the factors that affect acquisition of informed consent include education, health, and mental status. At changing the context to encourage healthy decisions level, factors the affect acquisition of informed consent include personal decision and level of counseling. At long-lasting protective interventions some of the factors that affect acquisition of informed consent are chronic conditions such as HIV/Aids and cancer. At clinical interventions the factors that affect acquisition of informed consent are high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Lastly, at counseling and educational interventions the factors that affect acquisition of informed consent are level of health education and individual’s behaviors.

2. What might be some effective strategies to prevent the various misuses of evaluations that were described?

Misuse of an evaluation occurs when the process or findings are altered to support self-interests. This is known as intentional misuse of an evaluation. However, sometimes misuse of evaluation can be contributed by certain unavoidable circumstances such as lack of time to distribute the client’s survey of satisfaction. However, there are certain strategies that can be effectively employed to prevent misuse of evaluations. One of the effective ways to prevent probable misuse is to involve all the stakeholders of the program, educate, and make them understand the evaluation process and its suitable use (Issel & Wells, 2018).  For instance, it may be very significant and understandable to make public the findings but also recognize the unfavorable findings and the procedures that have been put forward to address such findings. This strategy basically involves the participation of the stakeholders on the ongoing process. Additionally, sharing the information with program staff and the major stakeholders that the stands to which evaluators are held by the professional organizations assist them to identify that use of evaluation is an ethical issue and not just sustainability and funding issue.

3. In what ways might evidence-based practice (of any of the health disciplines) benefit from a meta-evaluation of programs to address a given health problem?

Meta evaluations are instruments that are used to aggregate certain findings from several evaluations. A meta-evaluation of programs are therefore important for evidence base practice in several ways (Issel & Wells, 2018). This is because a meta-evaluation of programs provides several knowledge about the evidence practice. For example, an evidenced based practice of prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (cauti) in long- term care facilities can benefit from the Meta evaluations by providing important information about the practice. On the same note, Meta evaluations programs provide an evidence-based practice with information of cases where the practice has been applied, its success stories, where it failed, and what should be done for the evidence practice to be successful in future.