Applying the Program Impact Pathways (PIP) Evaluation Framework to School-based Healthy Lifestyles Programs: Workshop Evaluation Manual

Abstract

Background The Mondelēz International Foundation hosted a seven country Healthy Lifestyles Program Evaluation Workshop in Granada, Spain, 13–14 September 2013. Objective To present the Workshop Evaluation Manual developed to support the work of the participants before, during and after the workshop. Methods The manual presents a brief introduction to program evaluation, a section on the Program Impact Pathways (PIP) framework using a USA school-based healthy lifestyle education program as an example, and a section on how to select PIP-informed indicators of the programs' impact on healthy lifestyles. The manual was refined using feedback received from the users before, during, and after the workshop. Results As illustrated in additional articles in this Supplement chronicling the workshop, all seven countries benefited from and were successful at using the PIP manual presented here to develop their own PIP analyses and identify their suite of indicators of the programs' impact on healthy lifestyles to improve the evaluation of their programs. Conclusion The PIP analyses were central for systematically identifying strengths and weaknesses of each country's program, as well as the key program activities, processes and impact indicators that need to be monitored to improve them.