Excerpted from the Preface of Health Program Planning and Evaluation, 4th Edition,
by L. Michele Issel, PhD, RN, University of North Carolina College of Health and Human Services Department of Public Health, Charlotte, North Carolina
The
fourth edition of Health Program Planning and Evaluation has stayed true to the purpose and intent of the previous editions. This advanced- level text is written to address the needs of professionals from diverse health disciplines who find themselves responsible for developing, implementing, or evaluating health programs. The aim of the text is to assist health professionals to become not only competent health program planners and evaluators but also savvy consumers of evaluation reports and prudent users of evaluation consultants. To that end, the text includes a variety of practical tools and concepts necessary to develop and evaluate health programs, presenting them in language understandable to both the practicing and novice health program planner and evaluator.