Ideal-types of Health Promotion Evaluation Practice

Louise Potvin, PhDUniversité de Montréal

III Saminario Brasileiro de Efetivivade da Promoçao da Saude

Rio de Janeiro, May 24 2011

• Evaluation is a practice whose objects are other practices that aim at transforming social conditions

• Evaluation methods are not disconnected from the other dimensions that constitute practice

• Health promotion evaluation practices are diverse and serve various ends

Message

Useful Definitions

• Population health interventions are « social » by nature; they involve: – transformative actions of humans on the

determinants of human health– coordinating actions from social agents capable

of agency• Interactions among interventions’

components and with contextual elements produce the intervention

• Health promotion interventions are always situated in time and place

• Health promotion interventions are complex open systems

Health promotion interventions Complexity

• Innovation results from a tinkering that consist in reorganising, and developing new, connections between pre-existing entities.

• Innovation is supported by a socio-technical network in which controversies emerge

• Evaluation results are instrumental to solve controversies, consolidate the socio-technical network and support innovation

Innovation: Three propositions from the Actor-Network Theory

Evaluation Research: Making sense

Evaluation assists sense making about policies and programs through the conduct of systematic inquiry that describes and explains the policie’s and program’s operations, effects, justifications and social implications (Mark, Henry & Julnes, 2000, p.3)

Mark, M., Henry, G. T., & Julnes, G. (2000). Evaluation. An integrated framework for understanding, guiding, and improving public and non profit policies and programs. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Evaluation research: Making sense

1: Why to evaluate? Assist in sense making

Understanding as oppose to judging

2: How to evaluate? Systematic inquiry

Scientific activity

3: What to evaluate? operations, effects, justifications and social implications of policies and programs

All elements of a system of action and their interactions

Evaluation research

• Transformative action of a subject on an « object »: the object of health promotion evaluation is another practice (T. Schwandt)

• Evaluation results are contingent to the evaluators: Point of view Training Conception of science and scientific

work Context of practice

Practice

The Practice of Health Promotion Evaluation

1: Teleology: What is the aim of the practice? To which project does it contribute?

2: Ontology: What is the object the practice aims to change. What is the nature of this object

3: Epistemology: How can one know about the object of the practice? What is the relationship between the subject and the object?

4: Methodology: How is the object transformed? What are the actions operated through the practice

Four dimensions of practice

Three ideal-types of evaluation practice

Evaluation as experimentation

Evaluation as mediation Evaluation as organised reflexivity

TELEOLOGY

Test Hypothese

s

Develop shared

representation

Conditions that re-produce action

Three ideal-types of evaluation practice

Evaluation as experimentation

Evaluation as mediation Evaluation as organised reflexivity

ONTOLOGY

Technical entities

Actors’ representation

s

System of actions

Three ideal-types of evaluation practice

Evaluation as experimentation

Evaluation as mediation Evaluation as organised reflexivity

EPISTEMOLOGY

Positivism

Constructivism

Critical realism

Three ideal-types of evaluation practice

Evaluation as experimentation

Evaluation as mediation Evaluation as organised reflexivity

METHODOLOGY

Experimental manipulation

Hermeneutic circles

Follow the action

Conclusion and Key Messages

• Evaluation is a practice whose objects are other practices that aim at transforming social conditions

• Evaluation methods are not disconnected from the other dimensions that constitute practice

• Health promotion evaluation practices are diverse and serve various ends

Message