The course presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating health and social policy programs. The five domains of evaluation are introduced: program needs, program theory and design, program process and implementation, monitoring of program outcomes, impact evaluation and economic evaluation. Health economic evaluation specific cost-effectiveness analysis is introduced, including incremental cost-effectiveness ratio calculations and decision plane.

Particular emphasis is placed on the steps involved in developing an evaluation plan/framework. The comprehensive framework is applied to the analysis of concrete health and social policies in Austria and internationally.

After completion of this course, students will be able to

• discuss the institutional and socio-economic context for policy evaluation,
• apply alternative theories and concepts to policy evaluation,
• articulate alternative approaches to assessing health and social policy,
• identify strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to program evaluation,
• commission policy evaluations,
• draw policy conclusions from the results of health and social policy evaluations.

 In addition, students will have

• the know-how to obtain and analyze information that will aid decision-making,
• the ability to take a multi-disciplinary approach to the application of analytical templates and other techniques,
• improved academic writing and presentation skills.

As this is a ‘course with continuous assessment (PI)’, the University requires students to attend at least 80% of the scheduled course units to complete the course successfully. Ideally, students must attend all units fully. If you are unable to fully attend a unit, please let the Lecturer(s) know in advance. In case online units are scheduled, the same attendance requirements apply.

Please also note that your presence at the presentation of the group projects is indispensable.

Lectures

·       Reading assignments

·       Teaching material (slides and example dataset)

·       Questions and Answers (Q & A)

Project-based-group work

·       Coaching and inputs by lecturer (presentations; feedback

·       Student presentations

Assessment Components (relative weights in the final grade)

·       Individual tasks:

• Preparation of peerwise questions regarding key point of compulsory reading or good quality comments on peerwise questions by other students, relevant comments of project-work during presentation (10%)
• Midterm-test (20%)

·       Group project:

• Written home assignments as part of the group project (45%)
• Group presentation of the project-work (final presentation) (25%)

Please note that this is a PI with a strict attendance requirement. We expect you to work on your group project together and in class (i.e. a fair amount of the group work will be done during the regular course hours). Your presence for the presentation of the group projects (on 16th December) is mandatory.

Grade Key (point ranges)

 1: Excellent (90-100 points)

 2: Good (80-89 points)

3: Satisfactory (65-79 points)

4: Sufficient (50-64 points)

5: Fail (0-49 points)

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By email. Meetings can be scheduled upon request.