Health Star Rating System Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Evaluation Plan

Evaluation Plan Report

Table of Contents

Background to a public health issue and program..

Program logic model

Key stakeholders.

Evaluation question(s)

Ethical considerations.

Evaluation approaches.

Evaluation indicators.

Data collection methods and analysis.

Evaluation utilization strategy.

Timeline and resources.

References.

Background to A Public Health Issue and Program

The major public health issue in Australia is overweight that has been prevalent from the last two decades (Devonshire- Gill & Norton, 2018). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2020), more than 67% of Australian adults were identified as overweight or obese adults (Australian Government, 2020). This public health issue was creating a significant amount of pressure on the government due to the increasing health demands and the rate of diseases in this country. In 2014, the Government of Australia established a preventative measure to slow down the rate of overweight Australians. This Australian Government initiative was the establishment of the Health Star Rating system that provides a visual comparison by assigning the health ratings to the food packages and beverages (Jone, Shahid & Neal, 2018). The main aim of this system is to assist the consumers in making informed buying and healthier food choices.

This is based on the concept of higher the stars the healthier will be the product. The overweight and obese people in Australia were made cautious of the food packages and beverages for their quality of being healthy or unhealthy. After the implementation, it also received its share of criticism for the effectiveness of the calculator of the stars. The calculator of this system utilizes the nutritional information mentioned on the label and it comes in two major forms. The first type is where the logo only depicts the number of stars for the product and the second is the depiction of rating and the information on some of the key nutritional categories (Jones, Radholm & Neal, 2018). According to The Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, the health star rating system improves the buyer’s awareness and also makes them understand the importance of nutritional information that encourages healthier food choices. Thus, this health program was highly appreciated and applied for the overweight and obese people of Australia in making informed purchases.

Program Logic Model

The health star rating system is a program that was implemented for packaged foods and beverages (Mantilla Herrera et al., 2018). It has received some share of the criticism by the officials for its rating system calculation but the opinion of the users that are the ultimate buyers is of utmost importance. The series of activities were conducted to make this system work and give authentic outcomes that are in favour of the obese people so that they can make healthier food choices. The diagram below depicts the series of activities that were conducted to achieve the short term and long-term goals after the establishment of this health star rating system. It works as shown in the following image that describes the inputs, objectives and the outcomes that are obtained in compliance with the objectives (Maddox et al., 2019).

Mission: To enable people to make informed purchases of the packaged food and beverages and to make healthier food choices

Input

• Data on Obesity
• Data on dietary intake
• Data on intake of packaged food
• Data on intake of beverages
• Data on intake of packaged food and beverages by obese people
• Nutritional information
• Labels of ingredients

Outcomes

• Short term
• Access to healthy food items
• Better healthier choices
• Long term
• Improvements in health of obese people
• Reduction in obesity

Activities

• Formulation
• Creation of health star rating system
• Testing on usage
• Calculation criticism
• Calculation of the users

Output

• Increased awareness
• Healthier food choices
• Public support
• Legislative support
• Health care professionals support
• Initiative enacted

Key Stakeholders

The evaluation of the health star rating system will include all the potential stakeholders that have an important role to play in the evaluation plan for this system (Dickinson & Adams, 2017). These key stakeholders are the people whose perspective of the health rating system matters in the evaluation. The stakeholder involvement in the health rating system is maximum and the stakeholders of this system that will be majorly involved in the evaluation plan are the users of this system. This focus on the perspective of the stakeholders that are the users is ideal for the evaluation completion as they are the ultimate users of this health program. To gather insightful feedback from the users, the key stakeholders will be contacted. The key stakeholders of this evaluation plan are the obese people, overweight people and the health care professionals. They are the key stakeholders because they have access to this health star rating system generated products as they are the best observers for the results of this system (Stack et al., 2018). They will assist in the evaluation of this process and also assists in analyzing their interest and the utilizing capacity of the health star rating system.

The users and the health care professionals are the key stakeholders of evaluation system because they are the ultimate purchasers of the food packages and beverages that have a direct impact on the working of the system and they also assist in analysing the efficacy of this health system program.

Evaluation Question(s)

The evaluation plan is based on the survey questionnaire for which the sample that is the key stakeholders will be selected for this evaluation program (Rossi, Lipsey & Henry, 2018). The participants will be selected for answering the survey questionnaire that will help in analysing the efficacy of this health program. The participants that are the consumers who are obese and overweight adults, the parents of obese children and some of the health care professionals will be involved in the evaluation program. Two health care organizations will be selected for the selection of obese participants and the health care organization. The inclusion criteria are that the list of obese people who have high BMI will be generated and these people will be contacted through e-mail. The health care professionals of these people will also be included in the list of participants. All the participants will be approached through e-mail and the consent will be obtained. After obtaining consent, all of them will be asked to fill in the survey questionnaire and this survey questionnaire will have both open-ended and close-ended questions. The benefit of using open-ended questions is that it helps the people to answer in detail of their perception on the efficacy of this health promotion based on their usage and the impact of this on their health. The evaluation questions that will assist in analysing the impact of usage of the health star rating system are as follows:

Question 1: Are you aware of The Health Star Rating system on packaged foods and beverages?

• Yes
• No

Question 2. Do you look at the star rating when purchasing the food products?

• Yes
• No

Question 3. Has this health program helped you in making informed purchases?

• Yes
• No

Question 4. How do you think this has altered your knowledge and buying experience?

Question 5. Do you think that after the implementation of the Health Star Rating system, you have made healthier food choices and you have become choosy on buying healthy products?

• Yes
• No

Question 6. Has this health rating system helped you with weight-related issues?

• Yes
• No

Question 7. What are the potential health benefits that you think have helped people to grow healthily through the use of this health program?

Question 8. What are the changes or additional information you expect this health rating system to provide so that significant positive health outcomes can be achieved?

Ethical Considerations

The ethical considerations must be respected while collecting the data and selecting the participants for the evaluation process through survey questionnaire (de Jong, 2018). The people that are involved in the data collection from the participants have an ethical duty to respect every person’s autonomy. The survey must be conducted ethically and the researcher must always adhere to the ethical principles (van Hoof et al., 2018). An important ethical consideration, in this case, is obtaining informed consent. The consent must be obtained so that the participants are well aware of this evaluation program for the Health Rating System and also to test its efficacy. The consent must be obtained that is the main ethical consideration. The consent will not be obtained at the start of the question of the survey but through email. This will be done before the start of the survey questionnaire so that the process goes smoothly. The process of obtaining consent is thus very important for the researcher so that the participants are well- informed of the process and that there given feedback and information will be used to analyse the results and to form a results statement (Hammer, 2017). This ethical consideration thus should be kept in mind and the process should follow all the standard considerations so that the process is smooth. The consent form should include the purpose of the study and the description of the procedure that must be followed and must always include the identification of experimental procedures that is the methodology section.

Evaluation Approaches

The evaluation approaches are the distinguished manners of thinking, designing and conducting the efforts of evaluation (Tam et al., 2017). These evaluation approaches assist in solving issues and also refining the already existing approaches. The health program system that has been evaluated here is planned to be evaluated using the formative approach. This formative approach used here is the survey questionnaire that will be used as a feedback approach for the evaluation of the health star rating system. This approach is very useful because this is the primary data collection that is the information and feedback is collected from the primary users of the health rating system. This system that was an initiative by Australian Government has already been established and this needs to be evaluated for its efficacy so that the appropriate changes can be made in the system if it was not efficient enough to provide the benefits of participants.

The formative approach lets the data collection for the evaluation from the client directly who are the ultimate users to make healthy choices. This evaluation approach is suitable and most applicable in this work because it lets the researcher to test the health rating system and to test its impact on the people that are obese people who have to make healthy choices (van der Vleuten, Lindemann & Schmidt, 2018). This evaluation approach is appropriate because of the flexibility it provides that is the use of open-ended and close-ended questions. The formative evaluation also helps the stakeholders in evaluating the fidelity of program delivery and investigates its impact on the users that are both the obese people and health care, professionals. This method of providing timely feedback about the health program services will better help in learning the insight of the participant’s perspectives and their views.

Evaluation Indicators

The evaluation indicators are the specific, observable and measurable accomplishments that help in measuring the progress of the health program so that the specific outcomes in the work plan can also be measured (Mingers & Yang, 2017). The evaluation indicator that is used in this evaluation plan is obesity, health conditions, quality of life of the people, their attitude on making healthier choices and overweight people. The four major types of indicators are input, output, outcome and impact. This working model that is the logic model also describes all these four indicators. The obesity is the evaluating indicator in which the obesity of people who have used this service of health rating system will be analysed as a positive indicator (Zhao et al., 2017). This is thus used as an evaluation indicator. The second evaluation indicator that can be used over here is the quality of life of people. This quality of life of people is highly characterized by the food choices that they make so the health rating system has a major role to play in assisting people to make healthy food choices. Healthier food choices have a direct impact on improving the quality of life of people because of the health conditions that impact lower life quality. The third and important evaluation indicator that will assist in the evaluation of the health rating system is the activities that were conducted to get positive outcomes (Bleich et al., 2018). These activities will also be analysed and evaluated for their efficacy.

Data Collection Methods and Analysis

The data collection method for the evaluation is through the primary source (Chiappero- Martinetti et al., 2018). The primary users of the health rating system are the people that are obese and overweight people who have to make healthy choices. The data collection method is the primary data collection method in which the survey questionnaire will be used to analyse the feedback of the primary users. This data that is collected from first- hand sources that are through a survey questionnaire will have majorly seven important questions that will help in analysing the feedback of people (Schoene et al., 2017). The participants will be approached through e-mail and they will be allowed to only access the questionnaire only when they give consent. The survey questionnaire will allow the participants to give a detailed answer through open-ended questions and direct answer through close-ended- questions. The collected data that is through the completion of the survey questionnaire will be then analysed using data analysis method. The thank-you form will be sent to the participants after receiving the responses and the number of participants who will send back the responses will be acknowledged.

The data analysis will start from here after receiving the primary data. The data analysis will assist in gathering the responses from the participants and analysing them so that the result can be obtained (Tracy, 2019). This will be having a mixed type of data so the statistical analysis will be used for the close-ended questions. A survey monkey will be used to analyse the collected responses that will give a graphical representation of the data of the number of people who find the health rating system as effective and for all the questions. The open-ended questions will be analysed using thematic analysis. The thematic analysis assists in categorizing the perspective of the users into common categories that will help the researcher in evaluating the health star rating system and its impact on enabling people on making healthy choices (Braun, Clarke, Hayfield & Terry, 2019). This will produce a mixed type of results that is both qualitative results and quantitative results depending on the type of question. The qualitative analysis method that is the thematic analysis and the quantitative analysis method that is statistical analysis will be used for the analysis of primary data (Deeks et al., 2019). The data collected through a survey questionnaire will be done using survey monkey that allows the researcher in sharing the questionnaire to different participants through the mail and also assist in the quantitative data analysis method.

Evaluation Utilization Strategy

The evaluation utilization strategy is the identification of the users and the uses of an evaluation and it also assists in anticipating the barriers (Baker, Collier & Jayaraman, 2017). The PowerPoint presentation will be used to make people more aware of the results of the evaluation of the health rating system. The health rating system evaluation will help the people in learning about the efficacy of this system and will also impact the quality of life of the users. The PPT presentation will be used to make people aware of the potential barriers, the result of this study of the evaluation program and also will assist in enhancing the utilization of the evaluation findings. The evaluation findings will be revealed to people so that they can rely on this health rating system for making healthier choices. The health rating system evaluation findings will allow the users on using this system or not depending on the findings of this evaluation.

The evaluation utilizing strategy will also assist in the identification of key processes and the times when results are required. It helps in reporting the users and updating them at the end of the evaluation of the findings so that good decision can be made by the users for the use of packaged food products and beverages (D’Ostie- Racine et al., 2016). This will assist the users in making key decisions and processes at the time of use of this system. This will also enhance their knowledge on the healthy products based on the star rating and the additional nutritional information that is given at the packs of packaged foods and beverages. During this evaluation process, there will be few evaluation phases that will allow the researcher to reveal some of the information like firstly the qualitative information will be revealed and then the quantitative information will be revealed. The reporting needs analysis is one of the most useful processes that is used to gather and record the information from the users.

Timeline and Resources

The timeline and resources mention all the resources that were used in the evaluation process (Umbrico et al., 2018). The type of resources that were used in this evaluation process ae staff members that will collect the list of participants that is the patients and the health care professionals from the health care organisations. The timeline given for the same was 1-week time for the collection of the list of participants for the survey questionnaire. The data analyst was also appointed for the qualitative data analysis because it was done using thematic analysis and requires an experienced data analyst. The considerate amount of money was spent on the data collection that includes the travelling cost, cost of staff members who were given money for collecting the data and also the money was paid to data analyst. The other resources that were included for the execution of this evaluation plan are experts of this field, the amount given to health care professionals so that they can give out some information on the efficacy of this health star rating system. The timeline and resources were set before the commencement of the evaluation work that is it was set during the time of evaluation planning.

References for Evaluation Plan Report

Australian Government. (2020). Overweight and obesity. Retrieved from https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/Overweight-and-Obesity

Baker, T., Collier, D., & Jayaraman, V. (2017). A new pricing strategy evaluation model. International Journal of Operational Research, 29(3), 295-316.

Bleich, S. N., Vercammen, K. A., Zatz, L. Y., Frelier, J. M., Ebbeling, C. B., & Peeters, A. (2018). Interventions to prevent global childhood overweight and obesity: a systematic review. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 6(4), 332-346.

Braun, V., Clarke, V., Hayfield, N., & Terry, G. (2019). Thematic analysis. Handbook Of Research Methods In Health Social Sciences, 843-860.

Chiappero-Martinetti, E., Von Jacobi, N., Maestripieri, L., Giroletti, T., Ziegler, R., Van der Linden, M., & van Beers, C. (2018). Primary data collection in case of social innovation: Templates for a mixed method, multi-level approach.

D’Ostie-Racine, L., Dagenais, C., & Ridde, V. (2016). A qualitative case study of evaluation use in the context of a collaborative program evaluation strategy in Burkina Faso. Health Research Policy and Systems, 14(1), 37.

de Jong, J. A. (2018). Ethical Considerations in the Total Survey Error Context. Advances in Comparative Survey Methods: Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural Contexts (3MC), 665-682.

Deeks, J. J., Higgins, J. P., Altman, D. G., & Cochrane Statistical Methods Group. (2019). Analysing data and undertaking meta‐analyses. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, 241-284.

Devonshire-Gill, K. R., & Norton, K. I. (2018). Australian adult physical activity sufficiency trend data: positive, prevalent, and persistent changes 2002–2012. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 15(2), 117-126.

Dickinson, P., & Adams, J. (2017). Values in evaluation–The use of rubrics. Evaluation and Program Planning, 65, 113-116.

Hammer, M. J. (2017, March). Ethical Considerations for Data Collection Using Surveys. In Oncology Nursing Forum (Vol. 44, No. 2).

Jones, A., Rådholm, K., & Neal, B. (2018). Defining ‘unhealthy’: a systematic analysis of alignment between the Australian dietary guidelines and the health star rating system. Nutrients, 10(4), 501.

Jones, A., Shahid, M., & Neal, B. (2018). Uptake of Australia’s health star rating system. Nutrients, 10(8), 997.

Maddox, S., Read, D. M., Powell, N. N., Caton, T. J., Dalton, H. E., & Perkins, D. A. (2019). Reoriention of the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program: The value of program logic model. Rural and Remote Health, 19(3), 268.

Mantilla Herrera, A. M., Crino, M., Erskine, H. E., Sacks, G., Ananthapavan, J., Mhurchu, C. N., & Lee, Y. Y. (2018). Cost-effectiveness of product reformulation in response to the Health Star Rating food labelling system in Australia. Nutrients, 10(5), 614.

Mingers, J., & Yang, L. (2017). Evaluating journal quality: A review of journal citation indicators and ranking in business and management. European Journal of Operational Research, 257(1), 323-337.

Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Henry, G. T. (2018). Evaluation: A systematic approach. Sage publications.

Schoene, G., Damerow, S., Hoelling, H., Houben, R., & Gabrys, L. (2017). Method for the quality assessment of data collection processes in epidemiological studies. Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz, 60(10), 1109.

Stack, R., Leal, N., Stamp, S., Reveruzzi, B., Middlin, K., & Lennon, A. (2018). Complex evaluations in the political context: Engaging stakeholders in evaluation design. Evaluation Journal of Australasia, 18(2), 122-131.

Tam, J. H., Ong, Z. C., Ismail, Z., Ang, B. C., & Khoo, S. Y. (2017). Identification of material properties of composite materials using nondestructive vibrational evaluation approaches: A review. Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, 24(12), 971-986.

Tracy, S. J. (2019). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. John Wiley & Sons.

Umbrico, A., Cesta, A., Mayer, M. C., & Orlandini, A. (2018, June). Integrating resource management and timeline-based planning. In Twenty-Eighth International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling.

van der Vleuten, C., Lindemann, I., & Schmidt, L. (2018). Programmatic assessment: the process, rationale and evidence for modern evaluation approaches in medical education. Medical Journal of Australia, 209(9), 386-388.

Van Hoof, W., Meesters, K., Dossche, L., Christiaens, D., De Bruyne, P., & Walle, J. V. (2018). Ethical considerations of researchers conducting pediatric clinical drug trials: A qualitative survey in two Belgian university children’s hospitals. European Journal of Pediatrics, 177(7), 1003-1008.

Zhao, W., Yu, K., Tan, S., Zheng, Y., Zhao, A., Wang, P., & Zhang, Y. (2017). Dietary diversity scores: an indicator of micronutrient inadequacy instead of obesity for Chinese children. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 440.

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