title: Recommendations and Improvements for the Evaluation of Integrated Community-Wide Interventions Approaches.
abstract: Background. Integrated community-wide intervention approaches (ICIAs) are implemented to prevent childhood obesity. Programme evaluation improves these ICIAs, but professionals involved often struggle with performance. Evaluation tools have been developed to support Dutch professionals involved in ICIAs. It is unclear how useful these tools are to intended users. We therefore researched the facilitators of and barriers to ICIA programme evaluation as perceived by professionals and their experiences of the evaluation tools.Methods. Focus groups and interviews with 33 public health professionals. Data were analysed using a thematic content approach.Findings. Evaluation is hampered by insufficient time, budget, and experience with ICIAs, lack of leadership, and limited advocacy for evaluation. Epidemiologists are regarded as responsible for evaluation but feel incompetent to perform evaluation or advocate its need in a political environment. Managers did not prioritise process evaluations, involvement of stakeholders, and capacity building. The evaluation tools are perceived as valuable but too comprehensive considering limited resources.Conclusion. Evaluating ICIAs is important but most professionals are unfamiliar with it and management does not prioritise process evaluation nor incentivize professionals to evaluate. To optimise programme evaluation, more resources and coaching are required to improve professionals' evaluation capabilities and specifically the use of evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Tessa M
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7152-0340
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: van Koperen
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Carry M
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6688-1312
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Renders
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eline J M
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Spierings
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anna-Marie
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2157-6792
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Hendriks
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marjan J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Westerman
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jacob C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Seidell
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands; National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Albertine J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Schuit
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019985:Benchmarking; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control*; D058996:Quality Improvement