MPH 601 Week 3 Program Goals and Measurable Objectives Example

From "Prevent Diabetes" to "Lose 5% by Month Twelve": Writing Goals and Measurable Objectives for a Diabetes Prevention Education Program

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

MPH/601: Public Health Promotion and Education

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The county program, baselines, targets and participants are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources cited.

At a board of health meeting, a member asked the diabetes prevention program coordinator a pointed question: the program's brochure says it prevents diabetes, but what exactly does it promise, and how will we know? The question exposed a gap. The program had a slogan but no measurable objectives. This paper writes the goal and objectives for the redesigned program, based on the learning needs assessment and evidence from similar programs.

Goals Versus Objectives

A goal states the broad, long-term change a program seeks. Objectives break that aim into countable pieces, each naming who will change, what will change, by how much and by when. Objectives turn intentions into commitments that can be tracked.

The Program Goal

The goal: keep east side adults with prediabetes from progressing to type 2 diabetes by helping them achieve and maintain modest weight loss and regular physical activity.

Setting Targets From Evidence

Targets should rest on evidence rather than hope. In the Diabetes Prevention Program trial, adults with elevated glucose assigned to a lifestyle intervention with goals of at least 7% weight loss and 150 minutes of weekly physical activity developed diabetes at a rate 58% lower than those given placebo (Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group, 2002).

What Real-World Programs Achieve

Community programs rarely match trial results. When researchers pooled 28 US studies that carried the Diabetes Prevention Program into community settings, participants had shed roughly 4% of their starting weight a year on, and lay educators did about as well as clinicians, and each additional session attended increased weight loss by 0.26 percentage points (Ali et al., 2012). Every session a participant attends is worth a quarter point of weight loss, which makes attendance an objective, not a detail.

Choosing Realistic Targets

The program therefore sets a weight-loss target of 5% for the average completer, between real-world results and the trial goal, with 7% as an individual stretch goal. Because attendance predicts success, attendance becomes a central process objective.

Theory Behind the Objectives

Theory helps decide what objectives should target. Reviews of theory use in health promotion find theory-based interventions more effective and highlight constructs such as self-efficacy, perceived barriers and readiness (Glanz & Bishop, 2010). Several objectives target these constructs directly, since the needs assessment found confidence and barriers, not knowledge, were the main gaps.

Levels of Objectives

Objectives work at several levels. Process objectives describe what the program delivers and whom it reaches. Learning objectives describe what participants will know, feel and be able to do. Behavioral objectives describe what they will do differently in daily life. Environmental objectives describe changes in places and policies around them. Outcome objectives describe changes in health. Each level depends on the one before it, so a program that misses its process objectives will rarely reach its outcomes.

The ABCD Format

Each objective names the audience, the behavior, the condition under which it will be observed and the degree of change expected. For example: participants (audience) will modify a familiar recipe (behavior) during a cooking session (condition) so that it meets two of three guidelines for sugar, fat and portion (degree).

Process Objectives

Within its first twelve months, the program will enroll 180 adults with prediabetes from east side clinics and screening events, at least 60% of them Spanish-speaking or bilingual. Enrolled participants will attend an average of at least 12 of 16 core sessions, up from a baseline of 6. At least 70% of participants will attend a session within one week of any missed session through a make-up or phone option.

Learning Objectives: Knowledge

By session four, 80% of participants will correctly identify, from photographs, which of six common drinks contain the most added sugar and will state the weight loss that lowers diabetes risk for their own body weight.

Learning Objectives: Attitudes and Confidence

By session eight, average self-efficacy for physical activity, measured on a ten-point scale, will increase by at least two points from enrollment, and 70% of participants will rate their confidence to prepare a lower-sugar family meal as seven or higher.

Learning Objectives: Skills

By session ten, 80% of participants will demonstrate, during a cooking session, how to modify a familiar family recipe to reduce added sugar and fat, and will correctly read the added sugar and serving size on three food labels using a picture guide.

Behavioral Objectives

By month six, 60% of participants will report 150 or more minutes a week of moderate activity, up from 25% at enrollment. By month six, 70% will report replacing at least one sugary drink a day with water or an unsweetened drink.

Environmental Objectives

By the end of year one, the health department and park district will open a lighted evening walking loop on the east side, and two corner stores will place water and unsweetened drinks at eye level near the register.

Outcome Objectives

Participants who complete at least 12 sessions will lose an average of 5% of body weight by month twelve, with at least 40% losing 5% or more. Among completers, the share progressing to diabetes within three years will be tracked through clinic records and compared with county patients with prediabetes who did not enroll.

Objectives for Equity

Because the needs assessment found Spanish speakers had lower confidence and more barriers, the program will report every objective separately for Spanish-speaking and English-speaking participants. If results for one group lag by more than ten percentage points, the program will review its sessions for that group. Equity becomes a measured objective rather than a statement of intent.

Linking Objectives to Needs

Each objective connects to the needs assessment: attendance objectives address scheduling barriers; confidence objectives address low self-efficacy; skill objectives address the gap between knowing and doing; environmental objectives address unsafe evening walking and store options.

Measurement Sources

Attendance comes from session logs; knowledge and skills from brief picture-based checks and observation; confidence from short scales; behavior from self-report and step counters; weight from calibrated scales at sessions; and diabetes progression from clinic records.

Common Mistakes Avoided

The objectives avoid unmeasurable verbs such as understand or appreciate, avoid targets without baselines and avoid promising outcomes beyond what evidence supports. They also avoid counting activities, such as sessions held, as if they were results.

Summary Table

The program's summary table lists each objective by level, with its target, deadline, linked need, theoretical construct and data source, giving the board a one-page view of what the program promises and how it will report.

Conclusion

The board member's question now has an answer. The program's goal is to prevent diabetes among east side adults with prediabetes, and its objectives specify reach, attendance, learning, behavior, environment and weight loss with evidence-based targets. The Diabetes Prevention Program trial sets the direction, real-world translations set realistic expectations and theory points objectives at confidence and barriers.

References

Ali, M. K., Echouffo-Tcheugui, J. B., & Williamson, D. F. (2012). How effective were lifestyle interventions in real-world settings that were modeled on the Diabetes Prevention Program? Health Affairs, 31(1), 67-75. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.1009

Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. (2002). Reduction in the incidence of type 2 diabetes with lifestyle intervention or metformin. New England Journal of Medicine, 346(6), 393-403. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa012512

Glanz, K., & Bishop, D. B. (2010). The role of behavioral science theory in development and implementation of public health interventions. Annual Review of Public Health, 31, 399-418. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.012809.103604