Measuring public health practice and outcomes in chronic disease: a call for coordination

Abstract

A strategic opportunity exists to coordinate public health systems and services researchers' efforts to develop local health department service delivery measures and the efforts of divisions within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) to establish outcome indicators for public health practice in chronic disease. Several sets of outcome indicators developed by divisions within NCCDPHP and intended for use by state programs can be tailored to assess outcomes of interventions within smaller geographic areas or intervention settings. Coordination of measurement efforts could potentially allow information to flow from the local to the state to the federal level, enhancing program planning, accountability, and even subsequent funding for public health practice.

FIGURE 1—

Relationship between public health practice indicators and outcome indicators. Note. NCCDPHP = National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Public health practice indicators include measures of structure, process, and outputs; outcome indicators include short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes. In comparison, the service delivery and program implementation indicators also include structures, processes, and outputs, and the outcomes indicator sets of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion described in this article include outputs as well as outcomes.