Avoid These Common Mistakes in Your Program Evaluation Brief Submission

Manuscript Title

• Manuscript title overreaches the manuscript’s findings and results.

General

• Mixed use of key terms throughout the manuscript to describe the name of the program, phases of the program, population (human subjects), and outcomes (eg, measures, indicators, variables, study/evaluation/research).
• Use of inside language, acronyms, jargon, and program announcement names that are unfamiliar to those working outside local/state health departments and CDC.
• Making claims, establishing a position, and/or borrowing original ideas or the work of others without providing references.
• Outdated or unrelated references used to describe programs, interventions, and implications for public health practice.
• Failure to review the manuscript to ensure narrative flow, consistency, and integration of the text when multiple authors generated different sections of the paper.
• Ignoring or failing to follow the journal’s manuscript requirements to use AMA style when citing references within papers and in reference lists.
• Multiple terms used interchangeably when referring to a key partner (eg, local public health agency, health department, localities, agencies, and local programs) when only one term would be appropriate to avoid confusion.

 Abstract

• Abstracts aren’t revised after the manuscript is finalized and prior to submission to the journal.

Introduction

• Manuscript’s focus on health disparities of a particular population are not justified early in the manuscript with examples, such as inadequate access to health care, behavioral factors, educational inequalities, etc; if examples are present, they are not referenced appropriately.
• Key terms that could be unfamiliar to the reader aren’t defined in the context of the public health topic under discussion in the manuscript.

Program and Objectives

• Program objectives aren’t guided by recent peer-reviewed literature that would establish how the results are/are not aligned with the manuscript’s proposed program intervention.

Intervention Approach

• Use of too many frameworks, models, logic models, and theories to describe the program’s foundation, making the paper difficult to follow.
• Use of frameworks, models, logic models, and theories without justifications for their development and use (ie, supported by existing literature).
• Generating frameworks, models, and logic models before reviewing published peer-reviewed literature to discover whether one already exists that can be considered and cited.
• Intervention approaches lack sufficient detail to understand how they were implemented.
• Intervention approaches are not appropriately linked to results being reported.

Evaluation Methods

• Selecting and using the wrong statistical test(s) for the type of data collected.
• Evaluation questions are not supported by current peer-reviewed literature.
• Inadequate understanding or inappropriate use of evaluation study designs (eg, feasibility study vs pilot study), depending on the purpose of the evaluation.
• Inadequately defining and distinguishing between what is considered short-, intermediate-, and long-term outcomes throughout the manuscript.
• Referring to the use of a multi-method approach when authors are really using a mixed methods approach.

Results

• Failure to state limitations of sample size and/or inappropriate use of small sample size for the purposes of the research reported in the manuscript.
• Generating and reporting results too soon when the intervention period is too brief to adequately measure impact.
• Contributing impact to factors that cannot be proven or validated based on poorly described frameworks or interventions and the type data collected.
• Overreliance on qualitative data to make broad statements about program reach, impact, and sustainability (eg, multiple statements from individuals at multiple sites indicating “something” was successful).

Implications for Public Health

• Both positive and negative findings of equal scientific merit aren’t emphasized equally.
• Findings from the evaluation aren’t compared with findings of similar evaluations in the peer-reviewed literature.
• Findings aren’t presented in the context of how they can advance the field, but only as a justification for use and/or need for additional funding.
• Limitations of the evaluation are often either not provided or under discussed, which can potentially make findings less credible.

Tables and Figures

• Figures duplicate information in the text or tables.
• Tables duplicate information in the text or figures.