In recent years, the field of public health research has stressed the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of prevention activities. Thus, Public Health Education and Promotion has embarked upon aggressive evaluation of all prevention activities, particularly at the grassroot/community-based level. Literature searches reveal that there is voluminous research on evaluation models and their applications. Some evaluation models have been designed specifically for grassroot prevention activities (i.e. community organization, community development). For the past three years the Virginia Office of Minority Health (OMH) has funded fifteen (15) Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to do Health Education and Risk Reduction (HERR) activities in racial and ethnic minority communities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. OMH will discuss its experiences with "real life" rigors and barriers in adapting, implementing and sustaining evaluation models to assess CBO activities at the grassroot level in Virginia. OMH will also discuss ways it helped facilitate CBOs to make the paradigm shift from process oriented to outcome based evaluation activities.
Learning Objectives: 1)Participants will be able to identify strategies to modify evaluation methodologies to fit the vernacular of their intended racial and/or ethnic minority communities. 2) Participants will be able to identify strategies to assess the readiness of a community for implementation of a specific evaluation methodology
Keywords: Evaluation, Minority Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: The Virginia Department of Health's
Office of Minority Health
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.