NNPHI’s Evaluation and Impact team helps foundations, governmental partners, and other public health leaders determine whether their investments and programs are working, and how to make them better. Our evaluation services help our partners make data-informed decisions that strengthen public health systems and improve health outcomes for the communities they serve.
- Scalable Our in-house team, combined with our network of over 12,000 public health experts and external evaluators selected through competitive applications, is well-equipped to evaluate programs of any size with equal rigor.
- Lived experience Our experts have worked in large and small health departments throughout the United States. Their expertise is grounded in evaluation science and public health practice, and they understand how data translates into action.
- Utilization-Focused We measure success by how useful our evaluation findings are to the people who need to apply them. We engage end users at multiple points – from design to dissemination – to ensure we’re asking the right questions, getting the whole picture, and meeting real-world needs.
Our Work
We have evaluated national- and local-level public health initiatives, public health training programs, technical convenings, communities of practice and more. We help partners disseminate evaluation findings via multiple channels, from written reports to webinars to facilitated support for academic journal submissions and special journal supplements. We also contribute research and analysis to national reviews that examine complex public health topics and identify opportunities for systems-level transformation.
Featured Projects
Project Support: National Evaluations
In partnership with the Public Health Accreditation Board, NNPHI co-leads the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) National Evaluation and Evaluation Advisory Group.
Publication Support: Special Supplements in Academic Journals
NNPHI has helped CDC grantees understand, write about, and disseminate their evaluation findings, including providing technical and writing support for grantees to publish in special supplement issues of academic journals. Featured publications that NNPHI has supported include:
- 2024 – American Journal of Public Health: “CDC’s Initiative to Address COVID-19 Health Disparities: Lessons Learned”: AJPH
- 2024 – Journal of Public Health Management & Practice: “Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Efforts through State and Local Health Departments Funded by CDC: Evaluation Findings and Implications for the Field – Vol. I” – July/August 2024 – Volume 30 – Issue : Journal of Public Health Management and Practice
- 2024 – Journal of Public Health Management & Practice: “Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Efforts through State and Local Health Departments Funded by CDC: Evaluation Findings and Implications for the Field – Vol. II”: March/April 2024 – Volume 30 – Issue 2 : Journal of Public Health Management and Practice
- 2023/2024 – Prevention Science: “Advancing the Adaptability of Chronic Disease Prevention and Management Through Implementation Science”: Prevention Science 1/2024 | springermedicine.com
Featured Publications
- Are Relationships the Key to Effective Technical Assistance Centers? A Practice Report of 3 Efforts to Coordinate Public Health Resources in Times of Need (2026)
- Increasing support for the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and substance use: Implementation of narrative change strategies in local health departments (2024)
- Challenges and Opportunities for Strengthening the US Public Health Infrastructure (2021)
Core Capabilities
- Development of evaluation plans and logic models
- Environmental scans, literature reviews and meta-analyses
- Survey development (including instrument design, testing, sampling, respondent recruitment, and fielding)
- Qualitative data collection through virtual and in-person interviews, listening sessions, and focus groups
- Data management and visualization
- Manuscript development and journal special issue development and publication
- Development of inductive and deductive codebooks and thematic coding
- Descriptive analysis, bivariate, and multivariate analysis, modeling, and hypothesis testing and inference
- Protocol development for IRB and OMB applications
Our Approach
We adhere to the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) Guiding Principles for Evaluators (systematic inquiry, competence, integrity, respect for people and common good and equity). We conduct rigorous mixed-methods evaluations, integrating quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis rooted in community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods. This approach bridges the gap between collecting and using data: we structure our evaluations to ensure the organizations and funders can use the findings to plan, implement, and adapt programs and services to meet the evolving public health needs of the communities they serve. Our innovative and practical data collection strategies ensure that evaluation is timely, efficient, minimizes respondent burden, and gives voice to the people served by the health services we assess.
Our Experts
We have access to over 12,000 public health experts from our member institutes who specialize in epidemiology, biostatistics, econometrics, policy analysis and comparative effectiveness research. Access to these experts grounds our evaluations in both scientific rigor and local expertise, and allows us to properly scale our projects.
Ready to work with us?
We're ready to connect with funders and partners on public health evaluation efforts
