Evaluation of the Processes and Outcomes of a Physician Leadership Program: The Continuous Feedback Loop Design.

Introduction: Physicians assume leadership roles in their health care organizations and practices often without support or training. The Physicians Leadership Academy provides integrated leadership seminars, mindfulness training, and executive coaching in a 10-month curriculum to physicians across area organizations.

Methods: Program evaluators responded to stakeholders' need for continuous program improvement by developing a continuous feedback loop evaluation design incorporating a program monitoring system and a theory-driven program evaluation.

Assessment of the monitoring and evaluation system of a population-based program: Theory-driven evaluation approach.

The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of a monitoring and evaluation system (M&E) for a population-based program and to identify factors influencing its performance. The state health department provided a grant, guide, and training for health districts to implement the program and report quarterly and annually to the M&E. Some health districts did not meet this requirement.

Interfacing theories of program with theories of evaluation for advancing evaluation practice: Reductionism, systems thinking, and pragmatic synthesis.

Theories of program and theories of evaluation form the foundation of program evaluation theories. Theories of program reflect assumptions on how to conceptualize an intervention program for evaluation purposes, while theories of evaluation reflect assumptions on how to design useful evaluation. These two types of theories are related, but often discussed separately.

Using the exhibited generalization approach to evaluate a carbon monoxide alarm ordinance.

Current interests in enhancing the focus of external validity or transferability call for developing practical evaluation approaches and illustrating their applications in this area for meeting the need. This study takes the challenge by introducing an innovative evaluation approach, named the exhibited generalization approach, and applying it in evaluating the carbon monoxide (CO) alarm ordinance passed by Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The stakeholders specifically asked evaluators to determine the answers to the following two questions: (1) Does the alarm ordinance work? (2) What generalizable information can the Mecklenburg experience provide to other jurisdictions trying to decide if the alarm ordinance's planning, implementation, adoption, and outcomes are transferable to their communities? This study illustrates how to apply the exhibited generalization approach to provide the stakeholders with answers to these questions.

A liaison-based academic health department in Georgia: a partnership for improving community health.

Public health practice in Georgia and the North Central Health District 5.2 in particular is facing several challenges. In recent years, public health program funding in the state department and district has been cut or eliminated.

Correlations between compulsory drug abstinence treatments and HIV risk behaviors among injection drug users in a border city of South China.

Compulsory drug abstinence treatments (CAT) provided by the public security system have been one of the predominant methods of addressing drug abuse and HIV risks in China. This study assessed the association between CAT and HIV risk behaviors by surveying a community sample of 613 injection drug users (IDUs) at a city located in South China. The data indicated that the great majority of the participants (89.

The bottom-up approach to integrative validity: a new perspective for program evaluation.

The Campbellian validity model and the traditional top-down approach to validity have had a profound influence on research and evaluation. That model includes the concepts of internal and external validity and within that model, the preeminence of internal validity as demonstrated in the top-down approach. Evaluators and researchers have, however, increasingly recognized that in an evaluation, the over-emphasis on internal validity reduces that evaluation's usefulness and contributes to the gulf between academic and practical communities regarding interventions.

Prevalence of HIV infection and predictors for syphilis infection among female sex workers in southern China.

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and risk factors for syphilis infection among female sex workers (FSWs) in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China. A cross-sectional study recruited FSWs using a venue-based method and subsequent snowball sampling with mapping strategies. Questionnaire-based interviews were conducted to collect demographic and behavioral information.

HIV voluntary counseling and testing among injection drug users in south China: a study of a non-government organization based program.

HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) programs are usually delivered by government health agencies in China. This study examined the feasibility of using a Chinese non-government organization (NGO) to deliver a VCT program to injection drug users (IDUs) in a southern Chinese city. The process data indicated the program successfully recruited and served 226 male and female IDUs in 4 months.

Injection drug use and HIV/AIDS in China: review of current situation, prevention and policy implications.

Illicit drug abuse and HIV/AIDS have increased rapidly in the past 10 to 20 years in China. This paper reviews drug abuse in China, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its association with injection drug use (IDU), and Chinese policies on illicit drug abuse and prevention of HIV/AIDS based on published literature and unpublished official data. As a major drug trans-shipment country with source drugs from the "Golden Triangle" and "Gold Crescent" areas in Asia, China has also become an increasingly important drug consuming market.