Tuesday, March 13, 2012

How do you know it "works" in a community?

Thursday, March 15th at 8:00 pm ET/ 5:00 pm PT the Health Communication, Health Literacy, & Social Science Tweet chat welcomes Erin Aagesen from Health Literacy Wisconsin!  Erin will discuss the "nuts and bolts" of how to do a simple community-based program evaluation. 
Erin Aagesen, MS, MPH is the Health Literacy Coordinator at
Health Literacy Wisconsin, a division of Wisconsin Literacy, Inc. She manages statewide health literacy interventions in partnership with Wisconsin Literacy’s 63 member literacy agencies, community-based agencies and health care organizations throughout Wisconsin.

Erin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature (2004) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She began her career as a writer and editor for the health care and insurance industries. Seeking to become an advocate for health care consumers, Erin earned master’s degrees in Life Sciences Communication (2009) and Public Health (2010) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with an emphasis on health communication for vulnerable populations. She completed her capstone project with Egal Shidad, a program evaluation of a Somali media project in Minneapolis and St. Paul that emphasizes first-person storytelling to improve community health outcomes. Erin joined Wisconsin Literacy in 2010.

Erin serves as the chair of the Wisconsin Public Health Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee and is a member of the Southwest/South Central Wisconsin Regional Health Literacy Committee.

Participants are encouraged to explore the links below prior to the discussion:

A 3-minute video highlighting the preliminary results of the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeUs77fK7dQ&feature=share

An excellent resources page, including lots of program evaluation tools and tips, from the University of Wisconsin-Extension: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/index.html

All of the resources can be overwhelming, so I recommend beginners start with the, "Planning a Program Evaluation" worksheet, which you can link to from the page above.