Volume 11 — January 23, 2014
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Program Sustainability Assessment Tool: A New Instrument for Public Health Programs
This density plot graph shows the mean sustainability score for each of the 252 public health programs as points along the X axis (possible range, 1 – 7) and the density (frequency) of those scores on the Y axis (possible range, 0.0–0.4). The line graph starts with the first score of 1.32 (density approximately 0.005); the density of scores slowly increases through the 2’s (density approximately 0.02), then increases more quickly into the 3’s. The scores increase rapidly through the 4’s and peak near 5.3, with a density of approximately 0.39. The slope of the graph rapidly descends through the 6’s and ends with a value of 7.00 and a density of approximately 0.005.
Figure 1. Density plot (frequency) of the variability of Program Sustainability Assessment Tool (PSAT) scores across 252 public health programs participating in tests of the PSAT.
Figure 2 includes 2 line graphs. In both graphs the X-axis lists the 8 final sustainability domains (Political Support, Funding Stability, Partnerships, Organizational Capacity, Program Evaluation, Program Adaptation, Communications, and Strategic Planning) and the Y-axis lists the average sustainability score (presented as 1-7). In the first graph, the average domain sustainability score for community level programs are compared to the average of state level programs. The average domain score for community level programs are markedly higher in every domain. In the second graph, the average domain sustainability scores are shown for five program types (Obesity Prevention, Diabetes, Oral Health, Tobacco, and Multiple Health); Program Adaptation tended to have the highest scores; scores for Funding Stability tended to be the lowest across all the program types.
Figure 2. Program Sustainability Assessment Tool domain scores by level of program and type of program among programs participating in tests of the tool.
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