Public Health Assessment & Program Evaluation

Why Evaluate?

Last Updated: April 08, 2025
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​​​​​Why Evaluate?

As one of the ​10 Essenti​al Public Health ServicesExternal Link, the purpose of public health assessment and evaluation is to demonstrate the success or progress of programs, policies, or initiatives; examine their strengths and weaknesses; identify best practices; and improve their design, implementation, effectiveness, and impact.

Program evaluation allows the owner, manager or champion of a program, policy, or initiative to assess execution, and determine whether it achieved intended outcomes and overall impact.  Evaluation is used to:

  • Do things better
  • Make decisions on evidence as opposed to intuition
  • Pull evidence-based best practices and test them in a field environment
  • Adequately allocate resources
  • Proactively identify and fix a wrong before it perpetuates

​Public health program evaluation is not limited to public health entities alone, but also to any entity whose activity stands to impact the public's health in the short- or long-term.  Every entity should therefore evaluate the potential for its activity's impacts on the spiritual, psychological, social, as well as physical health of any population.