Conducting a strong needs assessment is the foundation for developing a successful prevention plan. The Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC) Data-Informed Decisions Working Group has designed this review sheet to support addressing data gaps through primary data collection. It provides several methods and select resources as a starting point for prevention team’s planning. These methods can involve varied means of data collection, including oral narratives, written text, photographs, video, and others.

Before conducting any focus groups or key informant interviews, it is important to decide what information you would like to obtain from your qualitative methods. The objective of collecting these qualitative data is to identify the most relevant contributing factors in your community. Based on the information you’d like to obtain, you can create questions. Here are some sample questions you may use. Remember that these are only suggestions – feel free to adjust, discard or add any questions to adapt your qualitative methods to your specific community.

How to collect qualitative data from focus groups and listening sessions.

CDC provides its funded programs with a wide range of evaluation resources and guides. State health departments, tribal organizations, communities, and partners working in a variety of public health areas may also find these tools helpful. The resources provide guidance on evaluation approaches and methods, relevant examples, and additional resources. The guides are intended to aid in skill building on a wide range of evaluation topics.

This handout provides tips on how to avoid common mistakes. To quote The United Nations Children’s Fund, Multiple-Indicatory Survey Handbook (2006): “These numbers, whether they are correct or not, will take on a life of their own once released…and may cause you a lot of trouble if you have not checked your arithmetic carefully.”

Fidelity of implementation refers to the degree to which teachers and other program providers implement programs as intended by the program developers. While there is agreement generally about what is intended when research refers to fidelity, in fact, fidelity has come to refer to a broad and loosely collected set of specific definitions.

This handout explains how to facilitate a focus group step by step.

A renewed understanding of the Strategic Prevention Framework. A renewed understanding of Evaluation Basics. Increased understanding of the linkage between measuring individual change and broader community change. Increased skill in setting realistic objectives for environmental strategies through the use of logic models.

This article presents an informed definition of sustainability and an associated planning model for sustaining innovations (pertinent to both infrastructure and interventions) within organizational, community, and state systems.

An ethical decision-making process can be most useful when you, or a team you work with, is faced with an issue or situation where a number of important values are at stake, and where…

This course provides guidance to facilitate selection and implementation of one of the many evidence-based programs related to prevention and treatment that are publicly available today. You will learn how to (1) select the program that best matches your organization’s needs and (2) carry out the steps necessary to implement the program you choose.