CDC Approach to Evaluation

Effective program evaluation is a systematic way to improve and account for public health actions by involving procedures that are useful, feasible, ethical, and accurate. The framework guides public health professionals in their use of program evaluation. It is a practical, nonprescriptive tool, designed to summarize and organize essential elements of program evaluation.

Announced by Dr. Frieden in Nov. 2012, the evaluation guidelines are a set of recommendations to inform evaluation planning and implementation. The goal is to increase the use of evaluation data for continuous program improvement Agency-wide. While the emphasis is on CDC practice, most of these recommendations, when implemented, will improve the ways in which partners, grantees, and community-based organizations evaluate and improve their program efforts as well.

A logic model is a graphic depiction (road map) that presents the shared relationships among the resources, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact for your program. It depicts the relationship between your program’s activities and its intended effects.

Indicators are used to determine if a program is implementing their program as expected and achieving their outcomes. They show progress towards a specific goal and/or objective. They must be precise, documentable, and/or measureable.