Evaluating Health Programs

Health education programs must be evaluated continually to make sure that they are accomplishing their goals. In order to evaluate effectively many aspects of the program must be examined. To do this in a fast and efficient way, triangulation is often used. Triangulation is the method of examining the three main components of a program. The three components are: Student learning, Curriculum opportunities, and Community impact. Once each of these aspects is examined, the overall effectiveness of the program can be determined and the evaluation will be complete.
Students learning should be continuously evaluated through a variety of assessment tools and student feedback. In a health education class the three learning domains are incorporated into the curriculum. Each domain’s learning is assessed throughout each unit. Tests, quizzes, and essays are common assessments for the cognitive domain. Journals, reflection cards, and values statements are common assessment tools used to evaluate affective learning. Role plays, presentations, and projects are commonly used to assess the behavioral domain. When each student learning in each domain is examined and assessed regularly student progress can be examined and followed more closely.
Curriculum and opportunities should be evaluated on a regular basis to make sure that the curriculum is meeting school, state, and national standards. In health education the curriculum often focuses on the topics being covered and not as much on assessment. By regularly assessing the curriculum, teachers and curriculum designers can improve the curriculum and the assessment tools to create better programs. With better more effective programs student learning will increase and more standards met. Many programs leave evaluation as an afterthought and this makes quality assessment more difficult. As a program is planned and implemented, assessment and evaluation must be included so that the effectiveness of the program can be examined.
Community impact examines the costs of the program verses the benefits of the program. Health programs are often looked at as an extra expense that can be avoided by cutting the program altogether. Yet when the long term impact on health for the individual and the community are examined it is clear that everyone benefits from health programs. The skills taught and developed through health programs help the individuals throughout their entire lives. Advocacy is a skill that is taught and encouraged throughout health programs and will benefit the entire community as participants go out into the community and teach the skills that they recently learned. Being informed about physical, mental, and emotional health will impact the quality of life for all.
Using the method of triangulation will help programs to make improvements and assess it’s effectiveness on a regular basis. If an evaluation is done and one of the components of the program is not being effective then improvements can be made and the program can be fixed so that it is benefiting its learners, having effective curriculum that is assessable, and is cost effective for the community that it serves.