The website that belongs to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a lot of relevant information that can be used by healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, and students. Its users receive an opportunity to obtain data related to the most critical health conditions, which is advantageous for healthcare teachers because they can resort to it when working with people. It also has a large learning collection that can be approached to ensure that the representatives of the general public use authoritative sources. However, the most advantage is associated with the program performance and evaluation. CDC (2017) defines the very framework for program evaluation, which means that it can be used as guidelines by educators who need to assess a set of activities and their effectiveness in reaching an intended outcome.
Health educators can resort to the CDC website when they plan their own program and want to assess its success or when they are willing to find out whether some other program that was implemented within their community turned out to be successful. Thus, they can provide evidence for decision-making and consider the framework for program improvement (Dalhousie University, n.d.). Health educators can also use the information obtained from this website in order to develop a detailed plan for evaluation that is aligned with the key standards. Good management of a program can then help to define whether a long-term evaluation is needed to discuss its outcomes (Sokal-Gutierrez, Ivey, Garcia, & Azzam, 2015). Resources for evaluation can also be obtained from the website, which saves time and gives educators an opportunity to spend more time working with clients. In addition to that, they have an opportunity to take part in evaluation training and improve skill in practice.
Health educators work with the members of their communities in order to provide them with the most relevant and authoritative information about various health conditions and ways to be healthy. As a rule, they develop education programs and implement them to make their work organized. In this way, the outcomes of their interventions can be easily measured, which is advantageous because they can define whether the activities they resorted to were effective or not. In this framework, measurement can also reveal if some improvement is needed for a program to be useful. The CDC (2017) website provides health educators with an opportunity to resort to its information regarding program performance and evaluation. It explains how the process of performance and evaluation should be maintained, including all steps and standards that are to be considered by an educator. What is more, it provides an opportunity for professionals to get to know where and when evaluation events and training take place so that they can attend them. Evaluation resources needed to increase the knowledge of an educator regarding evaluation peculiarities can also be reached with the help of this site.
The information provided by the CDC website is critical because it allows considering the feedback of the population when developing a new program. It is also possible to develop and practice evaluation skills (Harvard Medical School, n.d.). Program evaluation guidelines make it easier for professionals to define evaluation measures and develop long-term goals. Possible methodological issues can also be considered (AHRQ, 2014). It is advantageous that CDC provided a web-based resource because it can be approached from any location and at any time, which makes it more likely to be used than other alternatives (League et al., 2012).
References
AHRQ. (2014). Program evaluation. Web.
CDC. (2017). Program performance and evaluation office. Web.
Dalhousie University. (n.d.). Program evaluation. Web.
Harvard Medical School. (n.d.). Program evaluation and student assessment. Web.
League, K., Christenbery, T., Sandlin, V., Arnow, D., Moss, K., & Wells, N. (2012). Increasing nurses’ access to evidence through a web-based resource. Journal of Nursing Administration, 42(11), 531-535.
Sokal-Gutierrez, K., Ivey, S., Garcia, R., & Azzam, A. (2015). Evaluation of the program in medical education for the urban underserved (PRIME-US) at the UC Berkeley-UCSF joint medical program (JMP): The first 4 years. MEd Teaching and Learning, 27(2), 189-196.