Evaluation of health education programme

Evaluation is measuring the degree to which objectives have been achieved. It is the systematic collection, analysis and reporting of information about health education activities.  It involves the critical assessment of the good and bad points of your health education interventions, and how they could be improved. 

Evaluation involves judgment of the outcomes of an activity (good or bad) whereas in Monitoring you check the progress and identify problems faced during implementation.

Evaluation is usually not a part of routine health education activities, whereas monitoring is a routine ongoing activity.  Evaluation is conducted at the end of a programme activities. 

Evaluation is usually conducted by an external agency while Monitoring is usually conducted by those who are responsible or supervising the activities.

1. Determines how effective you are in achieving your objectives. 

Effectiveness refers to the extent to which objectives have been achieved

2. Determines whether you have used resources efficiently.

Efficiency means the extent to which objectives have been achieved with the available amount of resources

3. Helps to improve your programme by understanding what worked and what did not work.

There are three types of Evaluation

1. Process Evaluation

• Process evaluation covers all aspects of the process of delivering a programme.

• It includes assessing how they went about the health education programme; the work performance i.e. whether the planned activities are carried out efficiently, cost effectively and as scheduled

• Process evaluation can be carried out while the activities are going on or at the end.

• Examples: Participant's feedback about the sessions, number of sessions conducted against planned

2. Outcome Evaluation

• An outcome is an immediate effect or change produced by an intervention. 

• It includes assessing changes in awareness, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, skills or health-related behaviours in the people who have received health education messages. 

• Outcome evaluation is carried out at the end of your health education activities. 

• Examples: Use of insecticide treated bednets after awareness sessions, change in knowledge

3. Impact Evaluation

   • Impact evaluation is concerned with measuring the longer-term effects of the intervention and this usually corresponds to the intervention goal.

   • It measures long-term changes - e.g. decreases in mortality, morbidity, the prevalence of disease, or the incidence of the health conditions

   • It is usually done after three or five years or longer 

   • Impact evaluations are difficult to conduct and are usually conducted by external agencies. 

   • Examples: Decrease in the number of Malaria Cases;  Decrease in deaths due to diarrhoea.