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In prevention and health promotion there is an increasing demand for evaluation: especially in times of economic crisis, programs, interventions, policies are asked to be based on substantial evidence of efficacy and effectiveness. Ministry and regions, to perform their governance role, need mechanisms to monitor and control, planning, directing and evaluating. This paper intends to propose some methodological reflections both for those evaluators who are going to apply to this specific area and to operators of prevention and health promotion that want to deal with problems of evaluation. This is not to achieve a final comprehensive presentation of method and techniques (perhaps impossible in a single paper) but to raise some questions and reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical inactivity has been linked with a number of chronic diseases affecting the population. Evidences arerising the concern and a number of nations have implemented policies promoting health increasing physical activity, using an interdisciplinary approach. New methodologies for assessing their efficacy have to consider the growing complexity and the multisectorial context of the setting. The purpose of this paper is to describe an evaluation project of physical activity promotion programs, which have been implemented in three different Italian regions: Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and Autonomous Province of Trento. The evaluation process has been specially designed for each region, taking into consideration its aims and the local context of each promotion plan. The work involved the main stakeholders and was planned bearing in mind the importance of long-term sustaina-bility. It is here proposed as a contribution for developing efficient and sustainable methods and operational tools for the evaluation of health promotion programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the main characteristics of the Information System (SIS) of the cancer (breast, colorectal, cervical) screening programs (SP) in Italy. The SIS is organized in order to evaluate the quality and the effectiveness of the SP and is referred to different stakeholders and actors (national & local government, professionals, society) that can actually express different knowledge priorities. Different variables have been identified and annually collected by national surveys. The sources of data are the managing systems of the screening programs. The SIS produces several indicators, according to those identified by the European Guide Lines on quality assurance, which respond to the following evaluation and monitoring needs: * the SPis a path (disease management), not just performing a test; therefore we need to assess the quality of the whole path, and not only of the screening test performance; * the SPis directed to an asymptomatic population, hence it must take in account both the sensitivity and specificity * to evaluate the quality of the organization. The results of the evaluation are reported and/or summarized by different reporting system/tools in order to be used at different levels: service delivery, regional and national planning, governance assessment, generation of scientific evidence, accountability's purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]