Task 13 - Evaluate Progress and Plan for the FutureAlthough the PACE-EH Guidebook for Local Health Officials presents evaluation as the last sequential step in the process, consideration of the methods of evaluation should begin early in the planning stages of the assessment. The development of indicators, standards and the analyzing framework for each of the priority issues can all provide useful insight into how to evaluate short and long-term outcomes. For the purposes of the ICEHI both process and outcome evaluation was conducted. EHAT spent almost two years in the assessment process before developing action plans for implementation. As such, the early outcomes of the assessment that were worthy of reporting were process-based. In order to define and quantify these outcomes the EHAT used a measures table based upon the Ten Essential Environmental Health Services. For each of the ten services a number of measures were developed to track progress towards meeting identified goals and objectives. As the assessment process progressed, the measures table was continuously updated with process measures for each of the identified criteria. The quantification of outcome measures proved to be more problematic. The community environmental health assessment process in Island County is multi-faceted, involves many partnerships and involves numerous goals and objectives. In order to conduct a comprehensive evaluation process on all factions of the project it was necessary to develop a logic model to enable the visualization of the relationship of all the project activities to the goals, objectives and short and long-term outcomes. Ultimately the long-range outcomes of the assessment and action plan process are desired changes in behavior or improved environmental health conditions which will require significant shifts community dynamics. Measurement of these shifts, behaviors, or disease rates may not be discernable to long after the process is completed.
|