Program Design and Evaluation

Statistics are essential for identifying problems, advancing campaigns, and evaluating programs. Students will gain comfort with foundational statistical concepts and methods in this course, focusing on healthcare data. In addition, by evaluating research papers and statistical statements, students will be better able to craft messages. The course does not concentrate on teaching statistical packages, but students will participate in basic computations.

This course introduces students to the research process that supports effective health advocacy in the community. Students will learn the principles of literature review, instrument construction and implementation, and issues specific to community-based work and needs assessment; they will be exposed to the process of ethical approval for research involving human subjects in the community. Students will have an opportunity to apply these research principles in the community setting, gaining an in-depth understanding of context-driven, community-based participatory research and the concept of co-production of knowledge. They will develop assessment and evaluation skills and understand the uses of qualitative and quantitative methodology while gaining practical experience and applying statistical principles. By introducing students to data-collection concepts and analysis, this course establishes foundations that will be further refined in subsequent coursework in the program.

Using a social justice framework, this course will provide a theoretical foundation for the exploration and application of ethical dilemmas relevant to the health care system in the United States. In its various forms, the ethics of advocacy will be explored from different positions, from the patient and family level to health care institutions, funding mechanisms, and public policy perspectives.  In addition, as the medical model of disease has shifted to include the social-ecological model, recognizing the importance of the social in all aspects of health, wellness, and illness, ethical dilemmas have also changed. We will examine how social class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender among other social categories and identities affect ethics. The shift away from purely medical bioethics to a more socially informed version of health care, requires different approaches to solving new problems encountered within the current healthcare system.

This course is not intended to teach you a moral code. It will not teach you to act ethically, although it will likely make you think more about how you act and why. You will be challenged to identify ethical problems and explore various outcomes and solutions, making real-world decisions within a climate of moral ambiguity and competing priorities. Ethical dilemmas you have or are engaging within your field placements will provide possibilities for fertile conversations about these real-world dilemmas and how to effectively grapple with the range of possible outcomes.

Health advocacy issues are addressed in many different ways, typically involving some type of direct intervention. This course will provide an overview of, and a critical reflection on, the program design and evaluation process. Students will discuss and study elements of design and evaluation, the major theoretical and political orientations to evaluation research, and the practical, ethical, and methodological problems involved in applying research methods to understanding social change. Thus, this course will also serve as a review of the methodologies of community-based and participatory action research and practice. We will discuss how to approach program conception and implementation, including developing and measuring program goals and objectives, with a social-justice perspective. At the end of this course, students will be able to conceptually and practically understand the contours of how to thoughtfully plan, develop, and evaluate an intervention aimed at a health advocacy issue.