A case study of the evaluation of a public health intervention.
Large public health interventions to control infectious disease outbreaks are common, but rigorous evaluation to improve the quality and effectiveness of these is rarely undertaken. Following a large community-based clinic to prevent a hepatitis A outbreak, a multifaceted and multidisciplinary evaluation was conducted involving consumers, health professionals and industry partners. The results of this evaluation were used to produce practical operational guidelines for the planning and conduct of future interventions. These guidelines have been distributed to all public health units in New South Wales and may be included in the next edition of the NSW Health notifiable diseases manual. The evaluation approach can be applied to all public health interventions across NSW and Australia to assist in the development of operational guidelines, in order to increase the quality of public health action in outbreak prevention.
Forssman
Bradley
B
Public Health Unit, Sydney South West Area Health Service, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 1450, Australia. bradley.forssman@email.cs.nsw.gov.au
Gupta
Leena
L
Burgess
Graham
G
D006506:Hepatitis A / Q000517:prevention & control; D030041:Hepatitis A virus / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D017589:Immunization Programs; D009517:New South Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000592:standards*; D015980:Public Health Practice