Recorded presentation

Holly S. Ruch-Ross, ScD, Research & Evaluation Consultant, 9345 Avers Ave, Evanston, IL 60203, 847 673 1403, hruchross@aol.com, Afsaneh Rahimian, PhD, Afsaneh Rahimian Consulting Ltd, 7649 North Eastlake Terrace #2E, Chicago, IL 60626, and Jane B Bassewitz, MA, Department of Community Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point Blvd, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007.

The goal of the Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children Program (HTPCP), a collaboration between the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), is to improve the health status of mothers and children by increasing their access to health services. Since its inception in 1989, a total of 162 HTPCP grants have been awarded. Projects are community-based, and most serve poor and minority populations. In 2003, a survey project was initiated to examine the evaluation experience of this set of community-based programs. An adequate evaluation plan has been a grant requirement; however, based on preliminary analysis, more than half of the projects (53.8%) changed their evaluation plans after the project started. The most common reasons for changing the plan were issues of feasibility (50%) or data unavailability (50%). Only slightly better than half of respondents (56.5%) believed that their projects were well evaluated. Nevertheless, all respondents felt that their evaluation efforts produced some useful information. The most commonly reported uses of this data were to improve the program (88%) and to advocate for the service population (64%). The leading barriers to evaluation reported by respondents were staff turnover (44%), lack of funding (37%), and lack of evaluation expertise (33%). Multivariate techniques are used to examine the impact of project characteristics including geographic location, institution type, and service population on evaluation success and barriers encountered. This presentation will include discussion of the most common evaluation pitfalls and strategies used by HTPCP projects to address them.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• Describe the Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children Program.
• Identify barriers to evaluation for community-based programs.
• List common uses of data gathered by community-based evaluation efforts.
• Articulate several strategies for addressing barriers to evaluation.

Keywords: Evaluation, Community-Based Partnership

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation