How do process evaluation and outcome evaluation differ?

• A. Process evaluates final health outcomes only.
• B. Outcome evaluation focuses on program implementation fidelity.
• C. Process evaluation looks at implementation fidelity, reach, and dose; outcome evaluation measures changes in health status or behavior.
• D. Process evaluation and outcome evaluation are the same.

Answer: (C)

Understanding how a program is delivered versus what it achieves is essential. Process evaluation looks at how the program was implemented: whether activities occurred as planned (fidelity), how many people were reached (reach), and how much of the intervention participants actually received (dose). This tells you if the program was delivered correctly and to enough people to expect an effect. Outcome evaluation, in contrast, examines the results: whether there were changes in health status or in behavior that the program aimed to produce. So this distinction is why the statement about process evaluation focusing only on health outcomes is incorrect, why the claim that outcome evaluation focuses on implementation fidelity is incorrect, and why saying they are the same is incorrect. The correct idea is that process evaluation tracks how the program was delivered, while outcome evaluation measures the actual changes in health or behavior.