Evidence-Informed Decision Making in Public Health

Evaluate: Evaluate the effectiveness of implementation efforts

The final step in the Evidence-Informed Decision Making in Public Health process involves evaluating the effectiveness of implementation efforts. This step helps you answer these two questions:

“Did we do what we planned to do?”
“Did we achieve what we expected?”

Evaluating implementation efforts involves evaluating the intervention (program evaluation) and the implementation strategies (evaluation of the knowledge translation strategy). Both evaluations involve these steps:

• Identify outcomes of interest.
• Select indicators to measure these outcomes.
• Collect baseline data about outcomes of interest.
• Measure outcomes post-intervention to determine effectiveness of the program or implementation plan.
• Interpret these results to inform further planning and refine the program or implementation plan.

There are two kinds of evaluation: process and outcome. Process evaluation assesses whether the program or implementation plan was delivered as intended. Outcome evaluation determines if the program or implementation achieved the anticipated results or if there were any unanticipated outcomes. By conducting both types of evaluations, you can learn about the intervention and the implementation efforts.

For more information about evaluating implementation efforts, please review the Introduction to Evidence-informed Decision Making module.