Public Health Intervention Programmes and Their Evaluation

Abstract

A public health intervention is an intervention, which is applied to many, most, or all members of a community, with the aim of delivering a net benefit to the community or population as well as benefits to individuals. Every intervention programme has its cycle. One of most important phases in this cycle is the evaluation phase. One of the most important physiological risk factors for noncommunicable diseases is arterial hypertension. In Slovenia high prevalence of severe arterial hypertension was registered at the beginning of the 1990s what classified Slovenia among countries with the highest prevalence of severe arterial hypertension. Consecutively it was realized that an interventional and systematic programme to deal with the problem was strongly needed. Slovenia as a state officially joined international CINDI programme at the beginning of the 1990s, when its activities were limited to Ljubljana demonstrational area. First few years were used as an introductory period of the programme, while more systematically organized activities begun in the late 1990s. The paper presents the different types of evaluation and as an illustration of evaluation in practice the case of evaluationg of CINDI programme activities in Slovenia to reduce arterial hypertension prevalence effectiveness.