Challenges in evaluating rural health programs

Complex community-based prevention programs are being held to scientific evidence of their effectiveness and rural public health departments that implement such programs Often are not equipped to evaluate them. Rural public health departments are fettered by small budgets, small staffs, and less access to evaluation experts and similar resources. Community-based health promotion programs can include complex designs that may work differently in rural areas and evaluation of rural programs can be hampered by lack of control groups and the instability of results from small populations. The University of Kentucky has entered into a contract with the state Department for Public Health to implement an internal, participatory model of evaluation. In this model, the university evaluation expert trains local public health department staff in technical skills for program evaluation and acts as mentor and technical consultant to local public health departments on an ongoing basis. Through training and site visits, this model is one approach to addressing the challenges of evaluating rural health promotion programs.