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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring the tail of the dog that doesn't bark in the night
T2 - the case of the national evaluation of Choose Life (the national strategy and action plan to prevent suicide in Scotland)
AU - Mackenzie, Mhairi
AU - Blamey, Avril
AU - Halliday, Emma
AU - Maxwell, Margaret
AU - McCollam, Allyson
AU - McDaid, David
AU - MacLean, Joanne
AU - Woodhouse, Amy
AU - Platt, Stephen
N1 - This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2007/7/6
Y1 - 2007/7/6
N2 - Learning about the impact of public health policy presents significant challenges for evaluators. These include the nebulous and organic nature of interventions ensuing from policy directives, the tension between long-term goals and short-term interventions, the appropriateness of establishing control groups, and the problems of providing an economic perspective. An example of contemporary policy that has recently been subject to evaluation is the first phase of the innovative Scottish strategy for suicide prevention (Choose Life). DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY: This paper discusses how challenges, such as those above, were made manifest within this programme. After a brief summary of the overarching approach taken to evaluating the first phase of Choose Life, this paper then offers a set of recommendations for policymakers and evaluators on how learning from a second phase might be augmented. These recommendations are likely to have general resonance across a range of policy evaluations as they move from early planning and implementation to more mature phases.
AB - Learning about the impact of public health policy presents significant challenges for evaluators. These include the nebulous and organic nature of interventions ensuing from policy directives, the tension between long-term goals and short-term interventions, the appropriateness of establishing control groups, and the problems of providing an economic perspective. An example of contemporary policy that has recently been subject to evaluation is the first phase of the innovative Scottish strategy for suicide prevention (Choose Life). DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY: This paper discusses how challenges, such as those above, were made manifest within this programme. After a brief summary of the overarching approach taken to evaluating the first phase of Choose Life, this paper then offers a set of recommendations for policymakers and evaluators on how learning from a second phase might be augmented. These recommendations are likely to have general resonance across a range of policy evaluations as they move from early planning and implementation to more mature phases.
KW - Policy Making
KW - Organizational Innovation
KW - Humans
KW - Health Services Research
KW - Suicide
KW - Aged
KW - Organizational Objectives
KW - Child
KW - Behavioral Research
KW - Health Policy
KW - Scotland
KW - Choice Behavior
KW - Adult
KW - Program Development
KW - Program Evaluation
KW - Guidelines as Topic
KW - Middle Aged
KW - Adolescent
KW - Female
KW - Male
U2 - 10.1186/1471-2458-7-146
DO - 10.1186/1471-2458-7-146
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 17617891
VL - 7
JO - BMC Public Health
JF - BMC Public Health
M1 - 146
ER -