Planning and evaluation of public health interventions

The principles of public health promotion have been outlined in previous chapters within this textbook. Planning, implementation and evaluation should be viewed as three equally necessary and complementary components of any public health program. This chapter provides an introduction to planning and evaluation with respect to public health promotions and interventions. This chapter focuses primarily on overarching concepts. It identifies a simple, six-stage public health planning model that assists project teams to move from the initial identification of a need through implementation to assessment of the outcomes, with the evaluation also identifying any needs that remain partially or completely unmet. The concepts of planning and evaluation should be viewed as part of an ongoing process; the planning of public health interventions should be informed through reviewing outcomes of relevant previous projects while the evaluation phase should then provide observations and recommendations for future programs.