Program Evaluation and Chronic Diseases: Methods, Approaches, and Implications for Public Health

As the burden of chronic diseases in the United States continues to increase, greater efforts are being made to identify and implement interventions that successfully reduce disease risk, improve access to high-quality health care, and create sustainable health-promotion programs that ultimately improve health status and quality of life (1). Identifying effective primary and secondary prevention strategies through tailored program evaluation efforts has become an essential public health function in clinical and public health settings (2). Articles in this issue of Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) address various aspects of program evaluation, such as planning, methods, approaches, stakeholder involvement, and the use of program evaluation findings to guide the direction of future programs.