Addressing Challenges in Tobacco Control Evaluation

Chair

Robert Schwartz, Director of Evaulation and Monitoring, OTRU

Presenters

Barbara Riley/Steve Manske, John Garcia, Kelli-An Lawrence, Marino Francispillai, Ken Allison, Robert Schwartz, Shawn O’Connor, Martha McGuire, Nadia Minian, Scott Leatherdale

Brief Description

There is increasing demand for evaluation of Tobacco Control programs, policies and strategies. Preliminary observation suggests that evaluators face considerable challenges in delivering products that make significant contributions to achieving Tobacco Control objectives.

This session aims to stimulate frank discussion about the challenges faced by evaluators in evaluating tobacco control interventions and strategies. Authors explore a broad spectrum of challenges, including those related to: politics, resources, time, utilization, the ability to evaluate, access to data, methodology, determining causality, and paradigms for evaluation. Description and analysis of successful and less successful efforts to meet these challenges are included. Contributions are rooted in the evaluation literature.

The expected outcome of this session is an edited volume or special issue of a journal. Contributors have produced papers of 1,000 words and more . Each paper has been assigned a discussant who will lead discussion designed to improve the quality of the paper in preparation for submission to external peer review.

Sixteen senior scientists and evaluators with tobacco control experience have will actively participate in this workshop.

Expected Outcome

It is expected that the breadth and depth of papers will warrant an edited book. We will seek publishers active in the areas of evaluation and public health. Alternatively, we would seek to publish the best papers in a special issue of an evaluation or tobacco control journal.

Potential Impact

This session will bring together academics and practitioners who have grappled with challenges faced in major evaluations of tobacco control efforts. It is hoped that knowledge gained from papers and exchanges about the papers will generate important learning for both active participants and passive participants, and then to the general field of TC evaluation and indeed evaluation of other public health efforts.

Papers for Presentation:

Monitoring Tobacco Control Outcomes: Converging and Diverging Interests among Decision Makers and Evaluators in Choosing the Ideal Number of Indicators to Report – Shawn O’Connor
Evaluating School-based Tobacco Control Programs and Policies: Opportunities Gained and Opportunities Lost – Scott Leatherdal
Rigour and Feasibility in Tobacco Control Evaluation: Can they be Reconciled? – Ken Allison
Making Evaluations Useful: Overcoming the Challenges – Martha McGuire
Can We Evaluate the Work of Tobacco Control Advocates? – Nadia Minian
Integrating Evaluation Science and Service in Population Intervention: An Emerging Agenda – Barbara Riley, Roy Cameron, Sharon Campbell, Steve Manske, Kim Lamers-Bellio, Donna Czukar
Systems Evaluation Challenges – John Garcia
Challenges of Evaluating Comprehensive Complex Tobacco Control Strategies – Robert Schwartz
Ensuring Evaluation Dollars are Well Spent: Looking at Usability and Comparability – Marino Francispillai
Using On-line Questionnaires to Study Tobacco Control: Who Answers? – Lindsay Taylor and Kelli-An Lawrance

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