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Session Title: Cluster, Multi-site and Multi-level Evaluation TIG Business Meeting and Panel: Building Evaluation Capacity Among Dissimilar Community Programs: Lessons From the Community
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Business Meeting with Panel Session 499 to be held in Mencken Room on Friday, November 9, 7:00 AM to 7:50 AM
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Sponsored by the Cluster, Multi-site and Multi-level Evaluation TIG
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| TIG Leader(s):
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Rene Lavinghouze,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
shl3@cdc.gov
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Cynthia Phillips,
Phillips Wyatt Knowlton Inc,
cynthiap@pwkinc.com
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Martha Ann Carey,
Azusa Pacific University,
mcarey@apu.edu
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| Chair(s): |
| Andrea Hegedus,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
ahegedus@cdc.gov
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| Discussant(s):
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| James W Altschuld,
The Ohio State University,
altschuld.1@osu.edu
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| Abstract:
How do evaluators maximize evaluation efforts among disparate community programs? This question is vital as evaluators are increasingly called upon to design, implement, and report on complex social programs. Using examples from multi-site programs, such as CDC's Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) combined with community-based participatory approaches (CBPA); this session offers evaluators of large, complex programs tools to maximize evaluation efforts. The goal of improving overall effectiveness of evaluation efforts can be accomplished by building evaluation capacity among community stakeholders. In this session, evaluators will learn skills to achieve community buy-in, recognize various degrees of capabilities while training to common capacities, overcome barriers to evaluation, understand cultural dynamics, and improve the relevance of evaluation outcomes for communities. Improving skills of evaluators of large, multi-community projects is critical when dealing with complex problems, these same skills to improve community capacity also apply to evaluators of individual community projects.
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Community Capacity Building: Multi-site Issues and Answers
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| Andrea Hegedus,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
ahegedus@cdc.gov
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Andrea Hegedus is the evaluator for the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Guided by socio-ecologic models and community based participatory approaches, REACH is the cornerstone in CDC's effort to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. The program supports both Centers of Excellence in the Elimination of Disparities (CEEDs) which approach this complex social problem through systems and policy initiatives and Action Communities (ACs) which implement community interventions that impact racial and ethnic populations. Consequently, Dr. Hegedus is responsible for coordinating evaluation activities at multiple sites and varying levels of interventions. From this perspective, she is positioned to both understand the complexities involved in multi-site evaluations as well as present lessons learned from REACH and similar evaluation activities.
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One Size May Fit All: Lessons Learned From Multi-site Evaluations
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| Molly Engle,
Oregon State University,
molly.engle@oregonstate.edu
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Molly Engle is an evaluation specialist at Oregon State University and has 23+ years of experience evaluating community-based intervention programs. She has extensive experience with multi-site projects both as an evaluator of individual sites within a multi-site program as well as the evaluator for the overall program. Some of the multi-site programs Dr. Engle has evaluated include, as principal investigator, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded contract, 'An analytical framework for Public Health Special Project Grant Outcomes,' the HRSA-funded Geriatric Education Centers program, the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry, evaluating their educational efforts. She is currently serving as the principal investigator on the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation-funded Five Star Restoration Matching Grant Program and the evaluator for the Strong Women clinical field trial. Dr. Engle brings wide experience with multi-site evaluations at the ground level and has experienced the complexities of such evaluations.
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