Evaluation

The Center for Rural Health supports rural and tribal communities in evaluating the merit or worth of rural health policies, projects, programs, agencies, or systems. For evaluators, the merit is determined by the extent of accomplishing what is intended. For example, is the program operating as intended? Is the program achieving its intended outcomes? Evaluations of worth supply information on effectiveness and whether investments are worthwhile. CRH assists with evaluations while activities are in progress, allowing stakeholders to make improvements. Or after the fact, assessing goal achievement.

What We Can Do for You

In the area of evaluation, we offer:

  • Technical assistance in determining the merit or worth of a policy, project, program, agency, or system.
  • Program evaluation services to help organizations assess the effectiveness of their efforts, improve programs, and report accomplishments to stakeholders and funders.
  • System evaluation services to help stakeholders define a system, assess subsystem processes, evaluate coordination between subsystems, and determine a system’s effectiveness as a whole.
  • Assistance with evaluation planning.
  • Evaluation capacity building to help an organization’s strengthen its capacity to conduct and use evaluation effectively.
  • Guidance and support in designing a program or policy based on research evidence.
  • Publications such as fact sheets, journal articles, and presentations.

Our Expertise

The Center for Rural Health has faculty with extensive experience in program planning and evaluation for local, county, state, federal, and international programs. Our evaluation experts can help plan and conduct evaluations of a wide variety of programs, as well as build an organization’s capacity to conduct evaluations itself. Furthermore, CRH faculty and staff are among few evaluators to conduct system evaluation, resulting in CRH faculty developing a new practical framework for practicing system evaluation.

CRH faculty evaluates services on behalf of foundations, state government agencies, and a variety of federal agencies. The Center's evaluators have a wide network of contacts involved in rural health research across the country, as well as connections with key organizations and agencies within North Dakota.

Key Contacts

For general inquiries about CRH evaluation:

For inquiries about specific evaluation topics:

  • Health Networks, Health Policy, Quality of Patient Care, Hospital & Primary Care, Public Health Programs, Rural Health Outreach, Network Development, and Network Planning Grants – Brad Gibbens, MPA
  • Health Program Planning, Design, Management, & Evaluation, Systems Evaluation – Ralph Renger, PhD
  • Rural Health Reform Policy, Healthcare, Health Disparities, Workforce, Quality of Patient Care – Shawnda Schroeder, PhD
  • Systems Evaluation, Disaster & Emergency Management, Public Health Programs – Makenzie McPherson, MPH
  • Systems Evaluation, Program Evaluation, Native American Programs & Policy, Social Welfare Programs, Education Programs – Eric Souvannasacd, MS
  • Systems Evaluation, Social Inequality, Behavioral Health – Allyssa Schlosser, MA

Most Recent Publications

Complete List of Publications

Most Recent Presentations

Complete List of Presentations