Yes, the HECAT can be shortened. Its length and content should reflect only what needs to be analyzed.

The topics used in the HECAT reflect the health issues that the CDC considers to be important for children and adolescents. These topics may not match those used by some organizations or curriculum developers or the terminology used in your state, school district, or school. Review the HECAT to find health topic modules that most complement your curriculum requirements and terminology. You can change the terminology and content of the modules to best meet your needs. If you do not find a match within a single module, select items from multiple modules and design a new HECAT topic module.

A curriculum review usually takes several hours to complete. During the pilot-testing phase, curriculum reviews conducted using the HECAT took four to 16 hours, per curriculum to complete.

Typically, a curriculum review will not be completed in one session. Separate sessions might be necessary to:

• Prepare the review committee to use the HECAT.
• Determine local performance benchmarks and a list of curricula to be reviewed.
• Shorten the curricula list that might be acceptable for complete analysis.
• Conduct the complete analysis on the final curricula list.

Allow time for the curriculum review committee to review curriculum analysis scores and reach a consensus on recommendations.

The HECAT may be revised as needed when reviewing a single curriculum; however, it may be more burdensome to revise once the review process begins if analyzing multiple curricula. It is important to analyze all curricula consistently to ensure fair comparisons. This requires using the same scoring and comparison criteria for all curricula. Therefore, you should determine the items to be included in your analysis before you start the review process. If changes to the HECAT are made during the curriculum review process, you should review any curricula once again that were analyzed and scored prior to these changes.

It is not necessary to complete the entire HECAT for each curriculum that is reviewed. However, all categories and items can be useful for selecting or developing a curriculum. You can determine which items are important to include in your analysis and selection or development process.