Evaluation In Public Health

6. Evaluation

According to the United State Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, program evaluation is defined as the “the systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs to make judgments about the program, improve program effectiveness, and/or inform decisions about future program development”10. This is a critical concept in public health as it improves program implementation and aid program accountability and effectiveness. Evaluation also aid problem solving, provides critical information for knowledge understanding and inform decision making. The procedure and processes for evaluation should not only involve evaluation expert but also all relevant stakeholders.

This has been expressed based on two platforms: “biomedical” which focus on the impact on the health of the population, and “economic” which focus on the financial impact of the disease on the population. The burden of disease is usually measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity and other indicators hence, measurement as disability – adjusted life years (DALY) or quality-adjusted life years (QALY)12. The DALY and QALY quantify the year lost due to diseases. In public health the measurement of the burden of disease is critical as it helps to measure the impact of diseases and aid decision making in knowing the priorities to attend to. This is owing to the fact that there are limited resources available to address all challenges hence, prioritization based on the relative importance of disease and disability to the entire population - the burden of the disease. Priority is given to the disease posing the greatest threat to health and well-being of the population. Also estimation of the burden of disease aid the planning for preventive action, assessing performance of the healthcare system, identifying high-risk population, comparing actions and health

Propounded by Frederick Winslow Taylor, the theory of scientific management separates planning from execution and follows four key principles14. These are replacement of working with the “rule of thumb” with the scientific methodology to determine most efficient way, Matching workers to job based on capability and motivation assessment for maximum efficiency, monitoring workers performance and ensuring use of the most efficient model, and allocation of work between managers and workers to ensure efficiency15. Although this theory has been shown to be impactful in cases however, several criticism has arise based on the limitation of its applicability to industries and to literate persons, its promulgation of only “one right way to do things” and segregation and limitation of decision making to the managers