Recommendations and Improvements for the Evaluation of Integrated Community-Wide Interventions Approaches

Table 2

Findings of this study described as factors in their preferred end state.

Evaluation determinants	Programme managers/epidemiologists
Knowledge and skills	(+) Knowledge and experience with evaluation; (−) Limited knowledge and experience with evaluation of ICIAs; (−) Limited understanding of terminology (monitoring vs evaluation vs research); (−) Limited knowledge and experience with process evaluation; (−) Poor knowledge of where to find evaluation support; (−) Unaware of need for evaluation support of ICIA; (+) Understanding that external parties need to be involved to collaboratively set evaluation goals; (+) Knowledge about the relevance of making agreements about who would actually implement and evaluate these goals; (+/−) Awareness of the need to communicate about evaluation towards stakeholders, but not always investing in such communication; (−) Not aware evaluation needs to be managed
Support and finance	(+) Availability and good collaboration with an epidemiologist for evaluation expertise and responsibility for evaluation; (−) Scarcity of time to conduct comprehensive evaluations; (+/−) Availability of students, volunteers, coordinators, public and private partners to collect data; (−) Difficulty of obtaining data from certain target groups; (+/−) External partners having a stake in evaluation and motivated to conduct one; (−) Stakeholders not knowing the JOGG-approach
Motivation	(−) Not considering it their task to evaluate their ICIA; (−) Limited participation in the evaluation trainings and meetings offered by the JOGG office; (+) Interested in evaluation since it could be used to improve the JOGG approach and achieve their goals; (+/−) Feeling capable of conducting an evaluation after initial experience with it; (+) Combined personal interest in evaluation and the topic of childhood obesity prevention and ICIAs; (+) Opportunity to present the results on a national level and compare progress with other municipalities; (+/−) Municipal interest in effect evaluation, but not in process evaluation; (+) Evaluation as natural part of the work process; (+) Guidance from an evaluation expert (coach or trainer); (−) A comprehensive evaluation manual, perceived to be in-compatible with available resources

A factor functions as a barrier (−) when it is not yet in place, it functions as a facilitator (+) when it is already in place and as an uncertain factor (+/−) when it is in place to some extent or if it sometimes functions as a barrier and sometimes as a facilitator.