The use of evaluation methods for the overall assessment of health policy: potential and limitations
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The use of evaluation methods for the overall assessment of health policy: potential and limitations Krzysztof Kaczmarek* and Piotr Romaniuk
Abstract Background: The implementation of public policies requires special attention from public authorities to ensure their transparency, effectiveness and efficiency. For this reason, efforts to evaluate the abovementioned politics gained attention and importance. Similar processes, by their very nature, are also noticeable in the area of health policy, how‑ ever, the nature of the solutions used raises questions about the extent to which they allow to capture the assessed phenomenon in a holistic way. The current approach to the problem of evaluating health policy shows a tendency to break down this phenomenon into components including policies, programs or projects. The purpose of this publica‑ tion was to assess the main methodological approaches used in evaluation studies in terms of their usefulness and limitations in conducting overall assessment of health policy. Main body: The publication divides evaluation methods based on three main criteria identified in the literature— time, purpose and scope of evaluation. Methodological approaches to evaluation activities detailed on this basis are discussed from the point of view of their characteristics, usefulness and limitations in the creation of comprehensive health policy assessments. The growing awareness of the need for a different approach to evaluation, which was confirmed by the course of the discourse on evaluation in public health, was also pointed out. Conclusion: Given the complexity of the matter making up the health policy, attempts aimed at its overall assess‑ ment should be based on an approach integrating many approaches, while ensuring coordination of evaluation activities that should be subject to common assumptions. Keywords: Evaluation, Health policy, Public health Background The process of implementing public policy is becoming an extremely demanding task at present day. This is not only due to the complexity of the matter in which the activities are carried out, nor to the degree of difficulty in achieving the objectives, although in both cases underestimating these factors would be an obvious mistake. Undoubtedly, the most important change that has taken place in recent decades is the change in the environment *Correspondence: [email protected] Department of Health Policy, School of Health Sciences in Bytom, Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, ul. Piekarska 18, 41‑902 Bytom, Poland
in which decision-making processes are undertaken. The increasingly widespread crisis of trust in representatives of public authorities, largely stimulated by greater possibilities of social control of decision-makers, stimulated on one hand a change in the way decisions are communicated, with emphasis being put on transparency of activities and a stronger focus on demonstrating their purpose. On the other hand, a layer of broadly understood e
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