CDC Framework for Public Health Programme Evaluation Training Course

Course overview

Public health programmes are often required to demonstrate results to funders, governing bodies, communities and delivery partners, yet evaluation work can become a retrospective reporting exercise with unclear questions, weak indicators and limited stakeholder ownership. This course gives participants a disciplined way to plan evaluations that are useful for decision-making, feasible within operational constraints and credible to technical and community audiences. It is designed for professionals responsible for programmes such as immunisation, maternal health, disease prevention, health promotion, surveillance, social care and community health initiatives.

Participants work through the CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health: engaging stakeholders, describing the programme, focusing the evaluation design, gathering credible evidence, justifying conclusions, and ensuring use and sharing lessons learned. They learn to build a programme logic model, distinguish outputs from short-, intermediate- and long-term outcomes, formulate evaluation questions, select indicators, define data sources, assess data quality, choose suitable designs and develop an analysis and reporting plan. The course also applies the CDC Program Evaluation Standards to questions of utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy and accountability.

Instruction combines worked public health cases, instructor demonstrations, structured peer review and practical design workshops. Participants develop an evaluation plan for a live or realistic programme, including a stakeholder map, logic model, evaluation questions, indicator matrix, data-collection plan, analysis approach and communication plan. This practical portfolio can be refined after the course and used as the basis for commissioning, managing or conducting an evaluation.

The course suits staff who need to establish or strengthen programme evaluation practice, as well as managers who approve evaluations and need to assess whether proposed methods, evidence and conclusions are fit for purpose.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the six steps of the CDC Framework to structure a public health programme evaluation
• Map programme stakeholders and define their decision needs, influence and engagement roles
• Construct a programme logic model linking activities, outputs, outcomes, assumptions and external factors
• Formulate focused evaluation questions and prioritise them using utility and feasibility criteria
• Develop an indicator matrix with operational definitions, data sources, collection methods and disaggregation fields
• Select appropriate evaluation designs and sampling approaches for programme performance and outcome questions
• Assess evidence quality using CDC standards for accuracy, feasibility, propriety, utility and accountability
• Produce a usable evaluation plan with analysis, reporting, dissemination and evaluation-use actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Public Health Programme Managers — who must show whether funded interventions are delivering intended outcomes
• Monitoring and Evaluation Officers — who design indicators, collect evidence and report programme performance
• Health Promotion Specialists — who need to evaluate behaviour-change and community engagement interventions
• Epidemiologists and Surveillance Officers — who contribute data, measures and interpretation to programme evaluations
• Commissioning and Grant Management Staff — who need to assess evaluation plans and hold delivery partners accountable
• Community Health and Social Care Leads — who need credible evidence on service reach, equity and participant outcomes

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require previous formal evaluation training. Participants should be comfortable reading programme plans, discussing intended outcomes and working with basic tables or spreadsheets. Familiarity with their own programme’s objectives, target population, activities, routine monitoring data and reporting obligations will make the practical work more valuable. Participants should bring, where permitted, a short programme description or results framework to use in workshops. No statistical software, advanced epidemiology, research degree, prior logic-model experience or specialist qualitative research training is required. Complete beginners should expect a structured introduction before progressing to applied design decisions.

Training methodology

The course is delivered through instructor-led explanation of each CDC Framework step, followed by guided application to a running public health case and participants’ own programme contexts. Teams critique sample logic models, indicator sets and evaluation proposals against CDC Program Evaluation Standards. Short data exercises use simple tables to test definitions, disaggregation and evidence quality rather than advanced statistics. Each day adds a section to an evaluation-plan template. On the final day, participants present their draft plans for structured peer and instructor review, then identify actions, owners and approvals needed to implement them at work.

Course outline

Day 1: Positioning evaluation within public health programmes

• Purpose and scope of the CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health
• The six CDC evaluation steps and their practical sequence
• CDC Program Evaluation Standards: utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy and accountability
• Distinguishing monitoring, evaluation, research, audit and performance management
• Identifying primary intended users and their decision requirements
• Stakeholder mapping by interest, influence, representation and information needs
• Equity, cultural responsiveness and community participation in evaluation planning

Workshop: Participants create a stakeholder map and intended-use statement for a community health programme case.

Day 2: Describing the programme and its theory of change

• Defining the programme problem, priority population and service context
• Mapping inputs, activities, outputs and outcome pathways
• Writing measurable short-, intermediate- and long-term outcomes
• Identifying assumptions, external influences and implementation risks
• Developing a visual programme logic model
• Using a theory-of-change narrative to explain causal assumptions
• Checking logic models for equity, reach, dose and unintended consequences

Workshop: Participants build and peer-review a logic model and theory-of-change narrative for the case programme.

Day 3: Focusing the evaluation design

• Translating intended use into prioritised evaluation questions
• Process, implementation, outcome, impact and economic evaluation questions
• Applying feasibility criteria to evaluation scope and timing
• Selecting descriptive, pre-post, comparison-group and mixed-methods designs
• Defining target populations, sampling frames and participant selection approaches
• Developing an evaluation matrix linking questions, indicators, sources and methods
• Addressing ethics, consent, confidentiality and data governance requirements

Workshop: Participants produce a prioritised evaluation-question set and evaluation matrix for their selected programme.

Day 4: Gathering credible evidence and reaching conclusions

• Writing indicator operational definitions and numerator-denominator specifications
• Selecting routine data, surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations and document review
• Assessing data quality: completeness, validity, reliability, timeliness and representativeness
• Planning demographic and geographic data disaggregation for equity analysis
• Designing data-collection instruments and fieldwork protocols
• Preparing quantitative analysis plans using descriptive statistics and cross-tabulations
• Using qualitative coding, triangulation and evidence-strength criteria to justify conclusions

Workshop: Participants complete an indicator matrix and data-collection plan, then test it against a sample data-quality scenario.

Day 5: Using findings and finalising the evaluation plan

• Interpreting findings against benchmarks, targets, baseline data and stakeholder expectations
• Documenting limitations, alternative explanations and uncertainty
• Developing practical recommendations linked to evidence and decision authority
• Creating audience-specific reporting products for funders, managers, practitioners and communities
• Planning dissemination channels, feedback loops and knowledge mobilisation
• Building an evaluation-use and management-response plan
• Reviewing the complete evaluation plan against CDC Program Evaluation Standards

Workshop: Participants present a completed evaluation-plan pack and receive structured instructor and peer feedback on its usability and credibility.

Tools & standards covered

CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health, CDC Program Evaluation Standards, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions