Evaluation Primer on Health Risk Communication Programs

From the Preface:

"....In 1993, [United States Public Health Service] PHS undertook an analysis of health risk communication policies and practices across its agencies with the goal of developing recommendations to improve health risk communication. [Environmental Health Policy Committee] EHPC charged its subcommittee on risk communication with the analysis. Member agencies of the subcommittee submitted examples of health risk communication activities or decisions they perceived to be effective and examples of activities they thought had been less effective....The Subcommittee on Risk Communication and Education developed A Primer for Evaluating Health Risk Communication to assist federal health risk communication practitioners and decisionmakers to help improve their effectiveness in evaluating health risk messages and campaigns. The primer encompasses evaluation principles and practices as a central means for ensuring appropriate goals, content, and outcome of our health risk communication programs....This primer presents key principles and techniques to assist federal decisionmakers and health risk communicators to improve their overall effectiveness in evaluating health risk messages and materials."

Contents:

1. Principles & Techniques
• Why Evaluate?
• Types of Evaluation
• Evaluation Design
• Measure of Effectiveness
• Barriers to Evaluation
2. Evaluation & Research
• Designing and Testing
• Review and Pretesting
• Pretest Methods
• Print Materials
• Simple Survey
• Group Case Study
• Pretest Results
• Using Pretest Results
• Special Populations
• Risk Message Checklist
3. Outcomes & Impacts
• Assessment Questions
• Evaluation Options
• Midcourse Reviews
• Have We Succeeded?
• Evaluation Case Examples
• Evaluation Action Plan
• Effective Program
4. Selected References