Evaluating Workforce Development

Abstract

Evaluating workforce development for public health is a high priority for federal funders, public health agencies, trainees, trainers, and academic researchers. But each of these stakeholders has a different set of interests. Thus, the evolving science of training evaluation in the public health sector is being pulled simultaneously in a number of different directions, each emphasizing different methods, indicators, data-collection instruments, and reporting priorities. We pilot-tested the evaluation of a 30-hour, competency-based training course in a large urban health department. The evaluation processes included strategic, baseline assessment of organizational capacity by the agency; demographic data on trainees as required by the funder; a pre- and posttraining inventory of beliefs and attitudes followed by a posttraining trainee satisfaction survey as required by the trainers and the agency; and a 9-month posttraining follow-up survey and discussion of learning usefulness and organizational impact as desired by the academic researchers and the trainers. Routinely requiring all of these processes in training programs would be overly burdensome, time-consuming, and expensive. This pilot experience offers some important practical lessons for training evaluations in the future.

Perceived Impacts of a Public Health Training Center Field Placement Program among Trainees: Findings from a Small Group Externship Experience

“…Public health workforce development initiatives, however, remain underfunded while preventable population health concerns continue to grow (2). Evaluating workforce training initiatives play a critical role in making the case for further public health workforce development (3). However, the evidence base for evaluation of public health workforce training efforts is relatively small, though it continues to expand.…”

Early Evaluation Findings From a Federally Funded Training Program: The Public Health Associate Program

“…Today’s focus on greater accountability, transparency, 8 and evidence that demonstrates “what works” reinforces the importance of evaluation in planning and implementing public health workforce training programs. 9 However, evaluation efforts can be cumbersome and costly for an agency 10 ; they can often take years to plan, implement, and deliver results. Evaluating training programs can be particularly challenging, as there are unique methodological issues associated with measuring training outcomes and results.…”