Learning Objectives: Describe the effectives of two new resources that were implemented in California in order to improve the quality of local program evaluation plans.
Abstract: The California Department of Health Services Tobacco Control Section (CDHS/TCS) currently funds over 150 local programs. Two years ago, CDHS/TCS established a policy that required these programs to dedicate a minimum of 10% of their funding to evaluate their interventions. As part of this policy, programs are required to utilize a trained evaluator to aid in the design of their evaluation plans.
This year, two further actions were taken to improve the evaluation of local policy interventions: the establishment of a team of seven Technical Assistance Consultants (TACs) skilled in the area of research and evaluation and the provision of a comprehensive evaluation planning guide. Each TAC is assigned to work closely with 8-9 local health department programs and their evaluators to aid in the development of evaluation plans, evaluation progress reports, and final evaluation reports. To support this effort, CDHS/TCS has developed a Local Program Evaluation Planning Guide that includes practical definitions, examples as to how to build an evaluation plan, and sample survey instruments.
Results from a survey will be presented in which local program project directors, TACs and CDHS/TCS staff were surveyed in order to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of these two new actions in the development and implementation of the interventions and evaluation plans.
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