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Community of Evaluation Practice Across HMORN Sites

Publication Date

4-30-2015

Keywords

evaluation, organizational practice

Abstract

Background/Aims: Kaiser Permanente’s Community Health Initiative (CHI) strives to foster healthy eating and active living (HEAL) policy and environmental change to promote obesity prevention across communities it serves. The CHI evaluation framework uses a logic model that factors in baseline conditions, existing community assets, Kaiser Permanente assets, and design principles toward effective interventions and community capacity building strategies. Kaiser Permanente and the Center for Community Health and Evaluation (CCHE) at Group Health use evidence-based community health partnership characteristics to guide the evaluation of CHI initiatives using four primary design principles: place-based focus, multilevel interventions, multisectorial collaboration, and community engagement and ownership. The aims of the study are to (1) assess the generalizability of the CHI evaluation framework across HMORN sites, and (2) evaluate the application of the design principles as they apply to the multilevel evaluation structures across HMORN sites toward future evaluation collaborations within HMORN.

Methods: In an effort to understand the variability in evaluation experience and the generalizability of evaluation practice across HMORN sites, semistructured interviews were conducted with HMORN partners to explore the key design principles, including: (1) place-based focus to examine geographic variability across HMORN sites and communities, (2) multilevel interventions to explore evaluation activities across HMORN sites and communities, (3) multisectorial collaborations to examine how evaluation strategies are used differently across HMORN sites, and (4) community engagement and ownership to understand how evaluation teams partner within HMORN sites.

Results: Evaluation lessons learned to date are shared and may be used to inform multilevel HMORN evaluation collaborations in the future. Findings support the development of an evaluation inventory to understand common methods, metrics and measurements as they are used across HMORN sites.

Discussion: By gaining a better understanding of how evaluation practices are developed and informed, efforts can be made to improve partnerships toward more effective evaluation efforts and collaborations within HMORN.

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Submitted

April 1st, 2015

Accepted

April 28th, 2015