This presentation will describe the strategies used to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the 3-year National Folic Acid Campaign sponsored by the CDC's Division of Birth Defects, Child Development, Disability and Health. This evaluation assesses campaign effectiveness in terms of (1) increasing awareness about the benefits of folic acid in preventing birth defects and (2) increasing the percentage of women of childbearing age who consume .4mg of folic acid daily. The evaluation has a comprehensive process evaluation and an outcome evaluation. The process evaluation assesses campaign implementation and reach in 58 media markets by monitoring the following types of media: campaign PSAs (TV, radio, print), news coverage (TV, radio, print), and commercial advertisements (TV, print.) Data regarding non-media campaign communication were also gathered. These process data were used to develop the Combined Exposure Index (CEI) for each market. The CEI was used as a tool to assess each market's exposure to messages about folic acid and was applied in the first year of the evaluation to determine a subset of high and low exposure markets from which to sample for both the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking outcome surveys. A total of 2,800 interviews of English-speaking women and 500 interviews of Spanish-speaking women in their prime childbearing years (18-35) will be completed each year. Results of the process evaluation, the application of the CEI, and the first outcome evaluation survey will be discussed during this presentation along with lessons learned concerning collecting uniform process evaluation data and creating and applying the CEI.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to: 1. describe the comprehensive evaluation strategy used to evaluate the National Folic Acid Campaign; 2. identify some of the pros and cons in utilizing different process evaluation measures and a Combined Exposure Index to measure market exposure; and 3. discuss the results of the year 2000 evaluation of the National Folic Acid Campaign
Keywords: Birth Defects, Evaluation
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Council on Folic Acid; Westat
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.