Evaluation of population health short courses: implications for developing and evaluating population health professional development initiatives.

Abstract

Population health as an approach to planning is key to improving the health and well-being of whole populations and to reduce inequities within and between population groups. The Victorian Department of Health North and West Metropolitan Region, in collaboration with The University of Melbourne (School of Population Health), have delivered four annual population health short courses. The short courses were designed to equip participants with knowledge and skills to implement population health approaches upon their return to their workplaces. For three consecutive years, online surveys (n=41) and semi-structured interviews (n=35), underpinned by participatory and realist evaluation approaches, were conducted to obtain the perceptions and experiences of the population health short course participants. Evaluation findings indicate that participants' understanding of population health concepts increased; however, there were mixed outcomes in assisting participants' implementation of population health approaches upon their return to their workplaces. A core list of perceived requirements, enablers and barriers emerged at an individual, organisational and system level as influencing the capability of participants to implement population health approaches. Evaluation recommendations and actions taken to revise short course iterations are presented, providing evidence that the evaluation approaches were appropriate and increased the use of evaluation learnings. Implications of evaluation findings for professional development practice (i.e. shift from a 'Course' as a one-off event to a Population Health 'Program' of inter-dependent components) and evaluation (i.e. participatory realist evaluation approaches) are presented.