CPT-39703 Evaluation of Public Health Interventions (online)

Course

Credits 3.00

Language of instruction:

English

Assumed knowledge on:

DL courses Epidemiology and Public Health policies, Planning Public Health interventions, Integration of Evidence I, Randomized Controlled Trial, Observational designs and validity

Continuation courses:

The DL-MSc-specializations have a fixed schedule during the pilot-phase

Contents:

Note: This course has a maximum number of participants. The deadline for registration is one week earlier than usual. See Academic Year.(http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Education-Programmes/Current-Students/Agenda-Calendar-Academic-Year.htm) -> Registration for Courses.
Note: The period mentioned below is the period in which this course starts. For the exact academic weeks see the courseplanning on www.wur.eu/schedule.

The course focuses on the evaluation of Public Health interventions (policies and/or intervention programmes), consisting of three elements: process, effect and economic evaluation. Students learn about the topics and methods for evaluation of real-life interventions.
The last three steps of the Public Health Cycle are addressed in this course:
- the development of an evaluation plan: development of a plan for an evaluation of the processes and outcomes of the intervention based on the products from the previous steps (logic model);
- perform quality control: during the implementation stage, the intervention has been conducted and data have been collected. Quality of interventions can be enhanced by giving feedback based on intermediate evaluation results. Sometimes (components of) the intervention need revision in order to reach the objectives;
- analyse processes and outcomes: to close the cycle, in this step the data are analysed in order to make valid conclusions about whether the intervention has achieved its aims and objectives and whether and how the processes can be improved.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:
- compose an evaluation plan for process, effect and economic evaluations of interventions conducted in a real-life setting, including:
- evaluation objectives;
- quasi-experimental and other evaluation methods;
- integration of evaluation results.

Activities:

Knowledge clips, self-study, online group discussions, individual assignments, and an overall group assignment.

Examination:

- final exam: remote proctored written exam with closed questions (60%)
- group assignment: 'write an evaluation plan' (40%);
Both components need a minimum mark of 5.5 to pass.

Literature:

Haveman-Nies A, Jansen M, van Oers JAM, van ' t Veer P (2017). Epidemiology in public health practice. Wageningen Academic Publishers, The Netherlands.