The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #38697

Daniel Gentry, PhD, MHA¹, Gary Uhl, PhD², ThuVan T. Dinh, MPH³, Claudia Campbell, PhD⁴, Fernando Serrano, MA⁵, Ana Maria Turner Lomperis, PhD⁴, and Margret A. O'Neall, PhD⁴. (1) Associate Professor of Health Management and Policy, Saint Louis University School of Public Health, Center for HIV/STD Policy Studies, Salus Center Suite 300, 3545 Lafayette Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63104, (314) 977-8152, dgentry@slu.edu, (2) Program Evaluation Research Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Mail Stop E-59, Atlanta, GA 30333, (3) Center for HIV/STD Policy Studies, Saint Louis University School of Public Health, 3545 Lafayette Avenue, Salus Center, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63104-1314, (4) School of Public Health, Saint Louis University, 3545 Layfayette, St. Louis, MO 63104, (5) Environmental Health, Saint Louis University School of Public Health, 3545 Lafayette Ave., Salus Center Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63104

Background: The continuing HIV epidemic has resulted in increased attention to the importance of evaluating HIV prevention efforts conducted by health departments. Purpose: To explore the strategies and approaches that health departments have used to evaluate their HIV prevention activities, identify factors that facilitate HIV prevention evaluation, examine challenges to evaluating HIV prevention activities, and explore the resources necessary to increase the abilities of health departments to conduct HIV prevention evaluation. Method: A case studies approach was used at six health departments funded by CDC. Data collection methods included: (1) review of existing documents and (2) semi-structured interviews using 4 distinct questionnaires. Interviews were conducted with administrators, evaluation staff/consultants, community planning group representatives, and HIV prevention services contractors. The site visits yielded detailed descriptions of each health department. Themes that emerged across all site visits were explored via qualitative data analyses. Results: Results to be reported will include the most commonly mentioned facilitating factors, the most frequent challenges, and consideration of the most critical resources necessary for evaluation of HIV prevention programs. Conclusions: The results will be used to better understand health departments' capacity to evaluate their HIV prevention programs, to assemble successful models, approaches, and strategies for program evaluation, and to make recommendations to CDC for resources and capacity-building to increase HIV prevention evaluation capacity.

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives

By the end of this presentation, audience members will
(
• understand the meaning and importance of “evaluation capacity,” (
• be familiar with the main elements that account for evaluation capacity within health departments, (
• recognize several distinct strategies/approaches for increasing evaluation capacity, and (
• be able to identify key challenges that need to be met to evaluate HIV prevention activities.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.

HIV Service Linkage and Delivery, Research and Evaluation

The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA