1. Why is each type of assessment relevant to health program planning?

Imagine that you are part of a community health assessment and planning group. Your group believes it is important to know the rate of type 2 diabetes in the three census tracts being assessed. However, the only data available are the county statistics. Describe the process by which you would create a synthetic estimate of the rate of type 2 diabetes for whites, blacks, and Hispanics in the three census tracts.

A health program planning committee wants to address vari­ous health problems by developing programs for each health problem at all four levels of the public health pyramid. What would be some implications of this perspective on setting priorities and on the nature of the subsequent community health assessment?

 

Question 1: Why is each type of assessment relevant to health program planning?

There are mainly four types of assessments, namely formative, impact, outcome, and process. In this regard, each type of assessment plays a very different and significant role in health program planning. First, in health program planning, there are several stages. With these stages, there are the first two stages, namely the development and implementation stages. In this regard, formative assessment is needed to offer information on how to achieve the health program goals and objectives and what is needed to improve the entire health program goals (Arja et al., 2018). Second, impact assessment is needed to evaluate how the program affects the participants. In this case, appropriate measures such as changes in attitude, knowledge, and awareness are likely to be taken during and after the assessment.

On the other hand, outcome assessment is needed to evaluate the short and long-term program goals and objectives and identify the resources needed to achieve both objectives, as far as health program is concerned (Turner-Bowker et al., 2018). Finally, process assessment is needed to measure the activities and the resources needed for the program to succeed. This type of assessment evaluates how the program reaches the target group, the materials and information needed by the target audience, and the implemented activities.