IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/epplan/v38y2013icp1-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Swimming upstream: The challenges and rewards of evaluating efforts to address inequities and reduce health disparities

Author

Listed:
  • Hughes, Dana
  • Docto, Lindsay
  • Peters, Jessica
  • Lamb, Anne Kelsey
  • Brindis, Claire

Abstract

Racial and ethnic disparities in the health of Americans are widespread and persistent in the United States despite improvements in the health of Americans overall. Increasingly, strategies for reducing disparities have focused on addressing the factors that contribute to – if not fundamentally underlie – health disparities: social, economic, and environmental inequities, which limit access to resources and cause unhealthy exposures. As public health shifts to interventions that seek to improve the circumstances of disproportionately affected populations and achieve equity through policy change, alternative methods to evaluate these efforts are also required. This paper presents an example of such approaches to addressing asthma disparities through Regional Asthma Management and Prevention's (RAMP) programmatic efforts and an evaluation of these activities. The paper describes RAMP's targets and strategies, as well as the specific evaluation methods applied to each, including activity tracking, observations, surveys, key informant interviews, and case studies. Preliminary evaluation findings are presented, as are lessons learned about the efficacy of the evaluation design features – both its strengths and shortcomings. Findings discussed are intended to contribute to the growing literature that provides evidence for the application of emerging approaches to evaluation that reflect non-traditional public health and support others interested in expanding or replicating this work.

Suggested Citation

  • Hughes, Dana & Docto, Lindsay & Peters, Jessica & Lamb, Anne Kelsey & Brindis, Claire, 2013. "Swimming upstream: The challenges and rewards of evaluating efforts to address inequities and reduce health disparities," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-12.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:epplan:v:38:y:2013:i:c:p:1-12
    DOI: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2013.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149718913000050
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2013.01.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koh, H.K. & Oppenheimer, S.C. & Massln-Short, S.B. & Emmons, K.M. & Alan, C. & Geller, R.N. & Viswanath, K., 2010. "Translating research evidence into practice to reduce health disparities: A social determinants approach," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(S1), pages 72-80.
    2. Kelly, Cheryl M. & Hoehner, Christine M. & Baker, Elizabeth A. & Brennan Ramirez, Laura K. & Brownson, Ross C., 2006. "Promoting physical activity in communities: Approaches for successful evaluation of programs and policies," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 280-292, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haynes, Emma & Marawili, Minitja & Marika, Brendan Makungun & Mitchell, Alice G. & Phillips, Jodi & Bessarab, Dawn & Walker, Roz & Cook, Jeff & Ralph, Anna P., 2019. "Community-based participatory action research on rheumatic heart disease in an Australian Aboriginal homeland: Evaluation of the ‘On track watch’ project," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 38-53.
    2. Christina H. Drew & Kristianna G. Pettibone & Fallis Owen Finch & Douglas Giles & Paul Jordan, 2016. "Automated Research Impact Assessment: a new bibliometrics approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 987-1005, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wagemakers, Annemarie & Vaandrager, Lenneke & Koelen, Maria A. & Saan, Hans & Leeuwis, Cees, 2010. "Community health promotion: A framework to facilitate and evaluate supportive social environments for health," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 428-435, November.
    2. Amy Cox & Ryan Rhodes, 2020. "Increasing Physical Activity in Empty Nest and Retired Populations Online: A Randomized Feasibility Trial Protocol," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-16, May.
    3. Wulczyn, Fred & Gibbons, Robert & Snowden, Lonnie & Lery, Bridgette, 2013. "Poverty, social disadvantage, and the black/white placement gap," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 65-74.
    4. Kelsey Lucyk & Lindsay McLaren, 2017. "Taking stock of the social determinants of health: A scoping review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-24, May.
    5. Embrett, Mark G. & Randall, G.E., 2014. "Social determinants of health and health equity policy research: Exploring the use, misuse, and nonuse of policy analysis theory," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 147-155.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:epplan:v:38:y:2013:i:c:p:1-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/evalprogplan .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.