Engaging partners to initiate evaluation efforts: tactics used and lessons learned from the prevention research centers program.

Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Prevention Research Centers (PRC) Program underwent a 2-year evaluation planning project using a participatory process that allowed perspectives from the national community of PRC partners to be expressed and reflected in a national logic model.

Context: The PRC Program recognized the challenge in developing a feasible, useable, and relevant evaluation process for a large, diverse program. To address the challenge, participatory and utilization-focused evaluation models were used.

Coordinated school health programs and academic achievement: a systematic review of the literature.

Background: Few evaluations of school health programs measure academic outcomes. K-12 education needs evidence for academic achievement to implement school programs. This article presents a systematic review of the literature to examine evidence that school health programs aligned with the Coordinated School Health Program (CSHP) model improve academic success.

Using concept mapping to develop a logic model for the Prevention Research Centers Program.

Introduction: Concept mapping is a structured conceptualization process that provides a visual representation of relationships among ideas. Concept mapping was used to develop a logic model for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Prevention Research Centers Program, which has a large and diverse group of stakeholders throughout the United States. No published studies have used concept mapping to develop a logic model for a national program.