Abbie Heffelfinger

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MSPH, MSW, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Global health practitioner with experience in foundation partnerships, grant management, polio eradication, refugee mental health, HIV prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa, health systems strengthening, health workforce, and community-based development. SLC, 2016–

Previous Courses

MA Health Advocacy

Program Design and Evaluation

Seminar

Health advocacy issues are addressed in many different ways, typically involving some type of direct intervention. This course will provide an overview of, and a critical reflection on, the program design and evaluation process. Students will discuss and study elements of design and evaluation, the major theoretical and political orientations to evaluation research, and the practical, ethical, and methodological problems involved in applying research methods to understanding social change. Thus, this course will also serve as an introduction to the methodologies of community-based and participatory action research and practice. We will discuss how to approach program conception and implementation, including developing and measuring program goals and objectives, with a social-justice perspective. At the end of this course, students will be able to conceptually and practically understand the contours of how to thoughtfully plan, develop, and evaluate an intervention aimed at a health advocacy issue.

Faculty