Raising Awareness of Ebola in Sierra Leone

Evaluation Goals

Table 1. Evaluation Goals.

Type of Evaluation	Evaluation Goal
Formative Evaluation	To assess the need for the Ebola awareness campaign in Sierra Leone, relative to the social, political and economic issues that have made the community vulnerable to the disease. To investigate whether there is a need to modify aspects of the Ebola Awareness Campaign To provide feedback for stakeholders involved in the Ebola awareness campaign to modify specific aspects of the program
Process Evaluation	To evaluate whether the steps taken in implementing the Ebola awareness campaign have been implemented correctly or as planned. To help stakeholders of the Ebola Awareness campaign understand how its outcomes were achieved
Impact Evaluation	To measure the impact of the Ebola awareness campaign in the Sierra Leone community. To find out whether the impact of the Ebola awareness campaign aligned with its goals To establish how Sierra Leone would be, relative to its awareness and management of Ebola, without the Ebola awareness program
Outcome Evaluation	To measure the long-term effects of the Ebola Awareness campaign on the residents of Sierra Leone. To assess the ability of the Ebola awareness campaign to produce change in how the Sierra Leonean population views, understands and manages Ebola To find out whether and how well the objectives of the Ebola Awareness Campaign were achieved To determine whether the Ebola awareness campaign made Sierra Leoneans more aware about Ebola, or not To establish which aspects of the Ebola awareness program were more impactful for Sierra Leoneans, and why

Data Collection

Formative evaluation

The main source of formative evaluation data for the Ebola awareness campaign is existing information about the disease and the country. This existing information would come from media reports, publications from global and local health agencies, local census data, demographic data and government health records. This data would provide valuable information about the need for the awareness campaign (American Evaluation Association, 2012).

Process evaluation

People who are involved in the implementation of the Ebola awareness campaign would be the main source of information during the process evaluation phase. This source of information is validated by Windsor (2015) who says that people are among the most reliable sources of information for program evaluation. For example, the people involved in the implementation of the Ebola awareness program may be able to report on changes on the ground regarding the effect of the program on the people, or if the strategies associated with the campaign are effective, or not (Wukitsch, 2012).

Impact evaluation

People would also be the main source of information for the impact evaluation phase. However, unlike the process evaluation stage where stakeholders involved in providing data are those involved in implementing the Ebola awareness campaign, the people who will provide data for the impact evaluation phase are residents of Sierra Leone who are the target population of the campaign.

Outcome evaluation

Information for outcome evaluation would be collected from seeing and listening. Harris (2016) calls this type of data source the observation technique. It involves a structured, or unstructured, process of observing how selected samples of Sierra Leone communities change their lifestyles to prevent the occurrence of Ebola. By doing so, it would be possible to know whether the campaign had an effect, or not (Smith et al., 2010).

Table 2. Evaluation Data Collection Strategy.

Evaluation Purpose	Evaluation Question	Measures/Indicators	Data Collection Method
Formative Evaluation	Is there a need for the Ebola awareness campaign in Sierra Leone? Is there a need to modify aspects of the Ebola Awareness Campaign? What kind of feedback can be received to improve the design of the Ebola awareness campaign?	Motivation of campaign implementation team Ease in the release of funding Adequacy of management system Presence of clear role definition	Existing information Media reports Publications from global and local health agencies Local census data Demographic data Government health records
Process Evaluation	Have the steps taken in implementing the Ebola awareness campaign been implemented correctly, or as planned? Do stakeholders of the Ebola Awareness campaign understand how its outcomes were achieved?	Time taken to complete a specific aspect of the project The total cost of different aspects of the awareness campaign Effectiveness of the awareness campaign Complexity of different aspects of the awareness campaign	Feedback from people who are involved in the implementation of the Ebola awareness campaign
Impact Evaluation	What is the impact of the Ebola awareness campaign in the Sierra Leone community? Has the impact of the Ebola awareness program aligned with its goals? How will Sierra Leone be, relative to its awareness and management of Ebola, without the Ebola awareness program?	Awareness levels of Ebola Literacy levels on how Ebola is transmitted Knowledge levels on how to prevent Ebola	Focus group discussions Observation (listening) Interviews
Outcome Evaluation	What are the long-term effects of the Ebola Awareness campaign on the residents of Sierra Leone? What aspects could have helped or hindered the Ebola awareness campaign? How well were the objectives of the Ebola Awareness Campaign achieved?	Number of Ebola outbreaks Rate of Ebola infections Ebola fatality levels Awareness levels about Ebola	Interviews Focus group discussions

Evaluation Stakeholders

The stakeholders that would be involved in the Ebola awareness campaign are the residents of Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone government, campaign implementers and media. Residents of Sierra Leone are those who live within the country and could be affected by an occurrence of Ebola. They are also the main target population for the campaign. They are considered an important stakeholder group because they have an ethical responsibility to take care of their own health (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014; Jennings, Arras, Barrett & Ellis, 2016).

While it is unreasonable to force this stakeholder group to change their behaviors to prevent the occurrence of Ebola, it is reasonable to expect that this stakeholder group would be more aware of the disease and take proactive measures to prevent themselves from being victims (Jennings et al., 2016).

The media are another stakeholder group and involves the main agencies that would transmit information about Ebola awareness to the target population. This stakeholder group is comprised of television networks, radio stations, and local magazine publication companies. The government of Sierra Leone is also an important stakeholder group in the Ebola public health campaign. It is defined as such because it controls the countrys health infrastructure. Furthermore, it formulates the policies of the health sector that are likely to affect how the Ebola awareness campaign would be implemented (McKenzie, Pinger & Seabert, 2016).

Lastly, the implementers of the Ebola awareness campaign are another stakeholder group because they would be primarily involved in designing and implementing the campaign. Thus, they would be involved in the formative, process, and impact evaluation phases of the campaign.

Table 3. Evaluation Stakeholders.

Type of Evaluation	Stakeholders
Formative Evaluation	Media, government, campaign implementers
Process Evaluation	Ebola awareness campaign implementers, media
Impact Evaluation	Government, residents of Sierra Leone
Outcome Evaluation	Government, media, residents of Sierra Leone

Evaluators

The main types of evaluators that would be involved in the evaluation process include the campaign coordinator, data analyst and research scientist. The campaign coordinator is part of the evaluation team because of his understanding of different processes associated with the awareness campaign. He also understands the roles of each participant in the project implementation phase. His expertise would help to furnish the project implementation team with information regarding the efficiency of the campaign (Fertman & Allensworth, 2017). The role of the research scientist would be to collect information from different stakeholders, synthesize it and provide scientific and verifiable data regarding the campaigns efficiency and outcomes (Fertman & Allensworth, 2017).

In this regard, the role of the research scientist would include formulating the best data collection methods, such as focus groups and interviews, to understand the effects of the Ebola awareness campaign during the impact evaluation phase. The role of the data analyst would be to gather and analyze data from different centers of information, such as the media (how many listeners?), social media campaigns (how many people share information relating to Ebola?) and the likes to get a snapshot of the effectiveness and impact of the campaign on the target population. The table below shows the role of each evaluator in different evaluation phases.

Table 4. Evaluators.

Type of Evaluation	Evaluators
Formative Evaluation	Campaign coordinator
Process Evaluation	Campaign coordinator, data analyst and research scientist
Impact Evaluation	Campaign coordinator, data analyst and research scientist
Outcome Evaluation	Campaign coordinator, data analyst and research scientist

References

American Evaluation Association. (2012). American evaluation association statement on cultural competence in evaluation. Web.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Ebola outbreaks 20002014. Web.

Fertman, C. I., & Allensworth, D. D. (Eds.). (2017). Health promotion programs: From theory to practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Harris, M. J. (2016). Evaluating public and community health programs (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Jennings, B., Arras, J., Barrett, D., & Ellis, B. (2016). Emergency ethics: Public health preparedness and response. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

McKenzie, J., Pinger, R., & Seabert, D. (2016). An introduction to community & public health. London, UK: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Smith, M. C., Lambert, W., Boehm, F., Finkelstein, J. L., Singler, J. M., Léandre, F.,& & Mukherjee, J. S. (2010). Economic risk factors for HIV infection among women in rural Haiti: Implications for HIV prevention policies and programs in resource-poor settings. Journal of Womens Health, 19(5), 885892. Web.

Windsor, R. (2015). Evaluation of health promotion and disease prevention programs: Improving population health through evidence-based practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Wukitsch, K. (2012). MAP-IT: A model for implementing Healthy People 2020. Web.

Need help with assignments?

Our qualified writers can create original, plagiarism-free papers in any format you choose (APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, etc.)

Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.

Click Here To Order Now