Capturing the Complexity of Evaluations of Health Promotion Interventions

A Scoping Review

Authors

  • Ania Kania University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
  • Alka B. Patel University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
  • Amrita Roy University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
  • Gregory S. Yelland Yelland Evaluation Services, Lloydminster, Alberta
  • Duyen Thi Kim Nguyen University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
  • Marja J. Verhoef University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.027.003

Abstract

Evaluation designs that can capture the complexity of health promotion (HP) interventions are needed. Our objective was to assess if such evaluations use a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) perspective, by using a scoping review of evaluations of HP interventions concerning alcohol and tobacco use in the peer-reviewed (PR) and grey literature (GL). We developed indicator questions to assess CAS aspects. Our study revealed that none of the 45 PR and 9 GL evaluations that we reviewed explicitly used a CAS perspective; however, most indirectly assessed complexity aspects. Our indicator questions are a step toward addressing the challenges of the practical application of a CAS perspective.

Downloads

Published

2012-04-21

How to Cite

Kania, A., Patel, A. B., Roy, A., Yelland, G. S., Nguyen, D. T. K., & Verhoef, M. J. (2012). Capturing the Complexity of Evaluations of Health Promotion Interventions: A Scoping Review. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 27(1), 65–91. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.027.003

Issue

Vol. 27 No. 1 (2012): Spring

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2012 Ania Kania, Alka B. Patel, Amrita Roy, Gregory S. Yelland, Duyen Thi Kim Nguyen, Marja J. Verhoef

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors contributing to The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 (CC-BY-NC) license. This licence allows this work to be copied, distributed, remixed, transformed, and built upon for any purpose provided that appropriate attribution is given, a link is provided to the license, and changes made were indicated.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.