Kirsten L. Gruebling, MPH, CHES¹, Jeanette H. Magnus, MD, PhD², JudyAnn Bigby, MD³, Jill Bassett, MS⁴, Delia Camacho, PhD⁵, Belmari Diaz⁵, Kaiyti Duffy, MPH⁶, Rachael S. Fulp, MPH⁷, and Milta Vega-Cardona⁸. (1) Health Education and Community Outreach, Aurora Health Care, 1079 Summit Avenue, Oconomowoc, WI 53066, 262.560.4061, kirsten.gruebling@aurora.org, (2) Tulane and Xavier University of Louisiana’s Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, 127 Elk Place, EP7, New Orleans, LA 70112, (3) Office for Women, Family, and Community Programs, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School's Center of Excellence in Women's Health, 1620 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02120, (4) c/o Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School's Center of Excellence in Women's Health, 75 Francis Street, BC-2, Boston, MA 02115, (5) Center of Excellence in Women's Health, University of Puerto Rico, PO Box 365067, San Juan, PR 00936-5067, (6) St. Barnabus Hospital and Health Care System's Community Center of Excellence in Women's Health, 2021 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10453, (7) Center for Cardiovascular Disease in Women, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, BC-3, Boston, MA 02115, (8) St. Barnabas Hospital and Healthcare System’s Community Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, 2021 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10453

Creatively monitoring and evaluating a complex, collaborative health education program, that benefits program implementation, facilitates program development and innovation and ensures participant satisfaction.

To the Heart of Women, a program that utilized lay health educators in both English and Spanish speaking communities, was designed to increase women’s awareness of CVD risk factors, prevention, intervention and early detection. The program was a collaborative project between four federally designated Centers of Excellence in Women’s Health and the communities with which these centers worked. To the Heart of Women was conducted at geographically and demographically diverse sites that contributed to both the complexity and depth of the project’s process and impact evaluation.

The evaluation team created logic models outlining program rationale, goals, objectives, structure and activities to expose all facets of the program. Other unique tools evaluated the collaborative process, the programs impact on the Lay Health Educators, their willingness to change their behavior, their knowledge of the Stages of Change and their satisfaction with the program and the organizations.

Through the To the Heart of Women evaluation process it was determined that not only were community women likely to learn about CVD but the organizations themselves were able to learn about their own capacity. Evaluation, with the use of logic models and a variety of measuring tools, aids the program development and builds organizational capacity when creating and implementing complex, health education programs.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• Describe a number of evaluation methods that will aid in program development and organizational capacity building.
• Create a logic model that facilitates program progress and defines the program rationale, goals, objectives, structure and activities.
• Articulate how a collaborative project can be evaluated maintaining integrity in a variety of cultural and geographic settings.

Keywords: Evaluation, Community-Based Partnership

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.