Academic Practice Partnership Strengthens Statewide Diabetes Program

Issue


An estimated 300,000-350,000 people in South Carolina—9.6% of the total population—are living with diabetes, affecting more women than men; the prevalence of diabetes is higher in the nonwhite population (10.6%) than in the white population (7.3%). At the South Carolina Diabetes Prevention and Control Program (SC DPCP), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), officials are working to address the prevalence of this disease and its complications through education and outreach programs for high-risk populations. The SC DPCP is also required to conduct, monitor, evaluate, and report on the effectiveness of its interventions. However, in recent years, the program lacked consistent evaluation expertise, a concern noted during a CDC project officer site visit.

Intervention


The South Carolina Public Health Consortium's postgraduate program played a significant role in tackling this issue. Housed at the University of South Carolina through a contract with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control's chronic disease divisions, the Consortium turned to its postgraduate program, which was developed to offer emerging practitioners two-year training opportunities to build their public health evaluation and epidemiology capacity skills in the state health department.

Through this partnership, the SC DPCP acquired the services of a postdoctoral fellow who functioned as its full-time program evaluator. This individual then focused on two tasks: 1) to collect information about how interventions were being carried out and determine whether they were being conducted as initially planned; and 2) to assess the program's effectiveness in reaching expected program outcomes, the results of which would help inform funders and decision makers about future programming and financial support.

Impact


The fellow's program evaluation efforts were positive on several fronts. SC DPCP's evaluation capacity increased over the two-year period and the program staff's knowledge and understanding of the importance of evaluation improved significantly. At the same time, through the work of the postdoctoral fellow, the SC DPCP was able to:

  • Plan and create a 5-year program logic model;
  • Increase program coordinators' knowledge and understanding of program goals and their roles in meeting program objectives;
  • Develop an evaluation plan that measures more than short-term outcomes but also program impact and effectiveness; and
  • Successfully hire a full-time program evaluator who has an understanding of evaluation and whose work is focused on diabetes.

Contact:


Shelly-Ann Bowen, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
South Carolina Diabetes Prevention and Control Program