Collaborative evaluation of community-based public health work: Methods, tools, and feedback loops of the Food & Fitness Cross-Site Evaluation

Since 2007, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has funded six community partnerships, known as Food & Fitness Partnerships, to improve equity in access to healthy, locally-grown food and environments that support active living.  The partnerships, with decision makers from community-based organizations, academic institutions, governmental entities, as well as community members, have targeted policy and systems change efforts in the most vulnerable neighborhoods in their communities, and have consciously engaged and empowered individuals living in these communities to do this work.   

                    

The Center for Managing Chronic Disease at the University of Michigan has worked with the partnerships over the life of the initiative to develop and implement a cross-site evaluation with measures of community engagement, partnerships, capacity building, increase in equity, and systems and policy change outcomes related to food systems and active living. 

This presentation will outline the process stakeholders undertook to collaboratively develop and implement the Food & Fitness Cross-Site Evaluation, including:  the methods used by the partnerships to collect and report evaluation data, the many feedback loops and iterations regarding both evaluation tools and data, and the tools used to track the community-based work over time, with special focus on the innovative Systems and Policy Change Form.

Evaluation of large-scale community-based work can be challenging, especially if one of the goals is to incorporate diverse voices into the development and implementation of the evaluation.  Innovative tools and processes developed as part of the Food & Fitness evaluation have created a comprehensive evaluation of the community-based initiative that includes multiple perspectives.