Comprehensive evaluation of a community coalition: a case study of environmental tobacco smoke reduction.
Community coalitions have become an increasingly popular means for addressing community health issues, yet evaluating their effectiveness and performance has presented formidable challenges. To meet the community's need for health program evaluation, public health nurses will need to become better prepared to deal with the complexities of evaluating coalitions and their multifaceted organizational structures. This article presents the methodology and conceptual framework, Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP), used to evaluate the performance and impact of a local community coalition. The case study offered here focuses on a tobacco-prevention coalition composed of 15 public and private agencies and their 121 activities. The TOP evaluation model provided the coalition with formative evaluation, needed to improve the coalition's on-going program delivery, and summative evaluation, needed for annual reviews of the coalition's effectiveness and impact in the community. The methodological approach and instrument presented here provide the public health nurse with a solid conceptual framework for approaching such a task.
Cramer
Mary E
ME
College of Nursing, College of Medicine, Department of Preventive and Societal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198, USA. mecramer@unmc.edu
Mueller
Keith J
KJ
Harrop
Dianne
D
D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009329:Nebraska; D020380:Needs Assessment; D024802:Nurse's Role; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017149:Private Sector / Q000458:organization & administration; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D011637:Public Health Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D017150:Public Sector / Q000458:organization & administration; D012107:Research Design; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control*
D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution