I have previously mentioned that I am a graduate student at Boston University. Or should I say, was? I recently completed my Master of Public Health. My final examination was on the topic of evaluation. Evaluation is the last thing we do post intervention and often the last thing we want to think about making it a poignant topic for my graduate career to end on.

The majority of the lectures I attended focused on quantitative evaluation. Over the course of my studies, there was little mention of health marketing or communication evaluation. During one lecture, I inquired about how those in academia recommend we evaluate social media campaigns. My professor shot me a puzzled look and evaded the question better than a skilled politician.

In the academic world where randomized controlled trials and statistical tests dominate the evaluation conversation, how can we effectively evaluate our work as health marketing and communication professionals?  Unfortunately, much of the conversation focuses on process rather than outcome/impact evaluation. Process evaluation is more concerned with the delivery of the program than the statistically significant impact in the population.

Beth Kanter, author of the popular blog How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, shares some insight into evaluation based on her experiences using social media. In a previous post, she discussed the shift from “proof or accountability (Did the program work?) to evaluation for program improvement (What did we learn that can help us make the program better?).”

This is a crucial shift because social media occurs in real time, so we can no longer wait for systemic evaluations to make the necessary changes to our social media interventions. Ongoing monitoring and process evaluation is necessary to guide decision making, but is does not provide conclusive evidence to the efficacy of social media for behavior change.

What strategies do you use to evaluate your health communication programs and the use of social media? Are there better strategies out there?  Do you know of any resources that will help guide your colleagues in the evaluation process?

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1. Yellowball
2. Getting Past the Boobs: An Open Letter to the Breast Cancer Awareness Community
3. Four Questions With Kelley Connors