Evaluating Your Progress

Evaluation is an integral part of the community planning process. This ongoing process serves two major purposes: to monitor and assess progress during the community planning phases and to evaluate interventions. Evaluation information is useful in:

Ensuring an effective community planning process Managing intervention programs, resources, and improvements Allowing community members to respond to the process Sharing information with participants, stakeholders, volunteers, and staff concerning the program’s accomplishments

As you plan and conduct a community obesity prevention program you will want feedback on how well interventions work-are activities completed, do positive changes occur? A well-designed evaluation can provide valuable information to resolve resource allocation, document accomplishments, as well as provide feedback on how well interventions as well as the community planning process work. Evaluation helps to quantify program results, progress, and quality of the intervention.