Methods and Instruments Used to Assess the Reach and Impact of ACA Education and Outreach Efforts

The National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities’ (NPA) Regional Health Equity Councils (RHECs) organized and delivered various outreach and education events leading up to the first open enrollment period. To assist RHECs to document and quantify the impact of these efforts, the evaluation team developed a measurement framework that included domains related to the events’ reach (i.e., number of participants), knowledge gain (i.e., how health insurance works, ways to buy insurance), and uptake (i.e., intent to take action to enroll), based on the Kirkpatrick training evaluation model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2005). A brief pencil and paper instrument was developed and translated into various languages. In addition, items related to participants’ demographics (i.e., primary language spoken at home) and technology literacy were integrated into the assessment. The evaluation team provided support to RHECs to implement procedures for administering the event assessments, including consultation on event set up and flow; review of translated forms; provision of samples of completed evaluation forms with instructions for participants; and orientation and training for data collectors. As a result, RHECs were able to collect post-event assessments from over 2,000 primarily uninsured, racially and ethnically diverse participants in Michigan, Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee. This presentation describes the process followed for developing the event assessment instrument, review procedures for supporting data collection, and presents key findings from our analyses of the event data.