Involving the evaluation of health promotion programs

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Identifying the economic benefit of program implementation and delivery can provide insight into the value of public health investments to the overall health system. It also can help program managers identify, measure, and compare activities with the necessary impact, scalability, and sustainability to optimize population health. By identifying the benefit of a health promotion program, program staff are able to determine the size and characteristics of the population to be reached, the projected impact of the intervention, and the estimated cost (Rabarison et al., 2015; Mckenzie, 1986). Program staff would also have a better understanding of program operations, and be able to tell what levels of intervention are most cost-effective. This information can influence decisions about how many people they need to hire, or how many people they can serve effectively. By identifying the economic benefit of a program, it can also influence legislators, policymakers, and other funders' decision on whether to invest in the program (Sewell and Marczak, n.d).

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) weighs the cost of the program against the dollar value of the program's benefits. This can be applied either before, during, or after program implementation, to assess the program's efficiency. This type of analysis is calculated by subtracting costs from benefits to obtain the net benefits. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), on the other hand, identifies and places dollars on the cost of a program. The costs are related to specific measures of program effectiveness. CEA helps determine which interventions to prioritize, by ranking them according to the cost of each unit of health ...