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Public Health Workforce Training
Link to beginning section of Advanced Program Evaluation

Introduction

Hi, I’m Sally and I work at the Middleton County Health Department. Today, I could really use your help with this evaluation plan I’m working on.

About six months ago, my Commissioner came back from a meeting at the CDC all excited about this new CDC-sponsored smartphone app that a few local health departments out in California have disseminated into their communities with great success. It’s called ShapeTracker, and apparently, people love it. I was tasked with launching this app in our county.

ShapeTracker is a very comprehensive, well-designed, and user-friendly diet and fitness app that features local resources. People use it on their smartphones to track their diet and exercise and to connect to wellness resources in the community. The app is designed to work on all different kinds of smart phones and is very promising because so many people have become regular active users in the pilot communities.

Obesity prevention is a high priority in our health department’s latest strategic plan and the ShapeTracker program is the biggest new obesity initiative we are rolling out. Here are some of the stats we put together on obesity, and also on smartphone use.

  • 38% of adults in Middleton County are obese
  • 67% of adults in Middleton County are overweight or obese
  • The rates of obesity and overweight in Middleton county are higher than the national and state averages
  • Nationally, 46% of adults have smartphones
  • According to the most recent household survey, 51% of adults in Middleton County have smartphones

We have made a lot of progress with setting up this program in Middleton County, and right now we are finishing the process of compiling the list of local county resources and we are customizing the app with that information. We have started testing it among some health department employees and so far they seem to really like it.

We want to do a comprehensive evaluation of the ShapeTracker program, and we are trying to apply the CDC six-step Program Evaluation Framework. I formed a small advisory group of stakeholders, and together we have already put together a logic model and started drafting some evaluation questions. With this kind of new program, which has its skeptics, it’s really important to show whether it is making a positive difference.

I know we are doing the right things with our evaluation planning so far, but we still have to figure out all the technical parts of the research design. We are so happy to have you on our team to help us work on that. In a few minutes I’ll fill you in on what we’ve come up with so far.

Our evaluation plan is based on the CDC Program Evaluation Framework, so let’s review that first.